LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Lessons on Morals 



ARRANGED FOR 



GRAMMAR SCHOOLS, HIGH SCHOOLS 
AND ACADEMIES 



BY 

JULIA M. DEWEY 

Author of "How to Teach Manners'''' and 
" Ethics for Home and School" 



COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY HINDS & NOBLE 



HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 
4-5-6-12-13-14 Cooper Institute, New York City 



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INTRODUCTION 



It is sometimes urged that with the innate im- 
pulse to duty and the intuitive idea of obligation, 
the "unconscious" ethical influences of the schools 
afford all the moral training that pupils should 
receive. 

If perfect conditions existed, this theory might 
hold, but in many schools there is not that ideal 
excellence necessary to make such influences im- 
pressive, and it is doubtful if in any school there 
are not found children who lack the innate im- 
pulse and are thus impervious to this kind of moral 
training. 

It is also claimed that the conduct of pupils 
furnishes abundant opportunities for concrete instruc- 
tion in duty, and that it should be used for this 
purpose. 

While it may be possible for a discreet and skillful 
teacher to turn the experiences of school to good 
account, the personal element* involved oftentimes 
induces harm that overbalances any good accom- 
plished. Moreover, such instruction is haphazard and 
irregular. Effective moral training does not differ 



IV LESSONS ON MORALS 

from the intellectual in that it involves a rational and 
intelligible order of instruction. 

An eminent teacher of ethics says: "The determin- 
ing of what is one's duty in varying circumstances 
calls for knowledge, and the fuller one's knowledge, 
the clearer will be the way of duty. Ignorance is not 
the mother of virtues." 

When children are mature enough to comprehend 
the more obvious principles of right and wrong as 
applied to conduct, moral instruction of a somewhat 
didactic or positive character should have a definite 
place in the weekly programme of a school. Such 
instruction should not be given by preaching or exhor- 
tation, nor by tedious harangues on duty, but by 
clear-cut, common-sense conversations and discussions 
until it becomes clear to the minds of the pupils 
that moral subjects have a place in a system of knowl- 
edge, and that putting this knowledge into practice 
is essential to happiness in life. 

It is said that moral instruction in the school is 
repugnant to the young. This is not in accordance 
with the observation of the writer nor with the testi- 
mony of hosts of teachers whose opinions have been 
sought. On the contrary lessons on morals usually 
excite the lively interest of the pupils, but when they 
do not, possibly the fault lies with the teacher's 
methods and manners. 

The object of the lessons contained in this volume 



INTRODUCTION V 

for the use of this manual. The material has been 
presented as informally as possible and it is hoped 
that each teacher who uses the book will make her 
presentation of the lessons still less formal. Only 
one caution is urged : there should be neither too 
much commendation for concrete illustrations of 
politeness nor too much condemnation for their 
omission. Familiarize pupils with the formulae of 
good manners — find a basis in kindness and unself- 
ishness if possible — and have them memorize 
maxims and verses and listen to illustrative stories 
pertaining thereto. Moderately insist upon having 
example follow precept so far as it can be done in the 
environment of school, and then, even if these efforts 
seem unavailing in the present, they will, according 
to the testimony of hundreds of pupils, bear fruit in 
the future. Accept a courtesy from a pupil as a 
matter of course, and if praise is given, let it usually 
be to the class as a whole rather than to an individual. 
The worst possible outcome of this study would be 
too much self-consciousness or priggishness. 

The Author. 



It has been well said that a text-book on Morals 
should be a collective work to which many minds 
have contributed. In accordance with this idea, in 
the preparation of these lessons quotations have been 
freely introduced whenever anything has been found 
suited to the purpose. Proverbs, familiar sayings and 
anecdotes have also been used for their effectiveness 
in fixing moral truths in the minds of the young. 

Thanks are due to Rev. Dr. T. T. Munger for 
courtesy in allowing the use of passages from On 
the Threshold and Character Through Inspiration, 
also to President William De Witt Hyde for the 
very material aid received from Practical Ethics, 
and to Messrs. Henry Holt & Co., publishers of 
the book. 



CONTENTS 



LESSON I 

PAGE 

The Study of Morals 3 

LESSON II 
Duties to the Body 11 

LESSON III 
Cleanliness . . . . . . 21 

LESSON IV 
Dress and Surroundings 27 

LESSON V 
Exercise, Recreation, and Rest .... 35 

LESSON VI 
Industry 43 

LESSON VII 
Economy $$ 

LESSON VIII 

Honesty . 67 

vii 



viii CONTENTS 

LESSON IX 

PAGE 

Truthfulness yy 

LESSON X 
Time 8y 

LESSON XI 
Order 97 

LESSON XII 
Courage .105 

LESSON XIII 
Love 121 

LESSON XIV 
Benevolence ■ - . .131 

LESSON XV 
Forgiveness 141 

LESSON XVI 
Kindness 153 

LESSON XVII 
Kindness to Animals . . . . . . 165 

LESSON XVIII 
Friends 173 



CONTEXTS ix 

LESSON XIX 

PAGE 

The Home 185 

LESSON XX 
The School 195 

LESSON XXI 
The Community 207 

LESSON XXII 
The State .......... 217 

LESSON XXIII 
Self Culture . . . . . . . .231 

LESSON XXIV 
Nature 249 

LESSON XXV 
Art . 259 

LESSON XXVI 
Reading ......... 269 



The Study of Morals 

Duty, Virtues, and Rewards 

Difficulties 
in the Way of Duty 



"A handful of good life is worth 
a bushel of learning" 



LESSON I 

THE STUDY OF MORALS 

The study of morals is the study of right and 
wrong, or of conduct. Certain truths, like certain 
principles in other subjects, furnish the basis of this 
study, and some definite knowledge of these truths 
helps to an understanding of their good or bad 
effects in practice. 

When a knowledge of moral truths is accompanied 
by practice it exemplifies what we understand by 
morals or ethics, the science of conduct and the art of 
life. There is an ideal excellence to be conceived in 
every direction of human effort, and though wc 
rarely realize it in its perfection, it is well for us to 
have it ever before us. Emerson advised nobly when 
he said : " Hitch your wagon to a star." 

Children must necessarily depend upon their 
parents or teachers for guidance until they are old 
enough to understand principles of right and wrong. 
Therefore, it is better for them to learn to decide 
rightly questions of conduct, in order that they may 
become strong and self-reliant in character. 

As we learn the greater part of the principles of 
morals from contact with one another in the daily 

3 



4 LESSONS ON MORALS 

intercourse of life, the value of their formal study- 
will consist not so much in new truths learned as in 
the clearer and sharper outline it will give to the 
moral ideal. Although we may in time forget every 
formal statement made in a book on morals, we can 
hardly fail to retain something of its spirit and aim, 
and to be influenced somewhat by the consideration 
of those principles which it attempts to inculcate. 
We live in society. Not one of us can live entirely 
apart as an isolated individual. On ac- 

, , ' count of our associations with our fel- 

and rewards 

low-men certain conditions arise which 
make the recognition of mutual rights a matter of 
the utmost importance. To a certain extent the 
rights of the individual are protected by civil laws; 
but in many of the countless relations that exist 
in life it is the chief concern of morals to point out, 
in each case, the one right relation in distinction 
from all others, so that the rights of the individual 
shall be preserved and the best good of all shall 
result. 

When relations exist between ourselves and things, 
like food, drink, and clothing, self is the first consid- 
eration. Self should ever hold the mastery over 
things. In our relations with people rights are 
mutual, and the right relation is best exemplified by 
the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would that 
they should do unto you/' There are other relations — 



THE STUDY OF MORALS 5 

to society as a whole, to the state, or the country, 
— which surpass in importance the relations to any 
individual, and which call for the sacrifice of self 
when occasion demands it. When we recognize this 
one right relation in each of the affairs of life, accept 
it, and make it our rule of conduct, we do our duty. 
When we do our duty over and over again, until we do 
it from choice, and it becomes a habit against which 
the opposite course has no power, the habit is a 
virtue. Since he who does his duty is faithfully 
fulfilling the purpose for which he was created, and 
building up for himself a firm and noble character, it 
is evident that duty brings the highest rewards — 
rewards that outrank those of art, literature, or 
science. "A handful of good life," says George 
Herbert, "is worth a bushel of learning." 

The doing of one's duty, commonplace though it 
may seem, embodies the highest ideal of life and 
character. There may be nothing heroic about it. 
The greatest call for duty is in the commonest affairs 
of life; and every one who acts his part honestly and 
honorably and to the best of his ability, being true, 
just, and faithful even in small things, is doing his 
duty in his sphere as certainly as the greatest states- 
man or warrior is in his. Carlyle says: "Don't 
object that your duties are so insignificant; they 
are to be reckoned of infinite significance, and alone 
important to you. Were it but the perfect regulation 



6 LESSONS ON MORALS 

of your apartment, the sorting away of your clothes 
and trinkets, the arranging of your papers, — What- 
ever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might, 
and all thy worth and constancy." When the 
Archbishop of Canterbury pronounced the eulogy 
over Thomas Sackville, who was the Lord High 
Treasurer in Elizabeth's reign, he did not dwell 
upon his merits as a statesman or a poet, but upon 
his virtues as a man in relation to the ordinary affairs 
of life. "What a rare character!" said he. "Who 
more loving and kind unto his family? Who more 
steadfast unto friend? Who more moderate unto his 
enemy? Who more true to his word?" 

The young should come under the control of duty, 
as early as they can understand its nature. The 
earlier its demands are responded to in the home, 
the social circle, the school, the shop, the easier will 
it be to form those habits that deserve to be called 
virtues. 

It is well to realize that it is not always easy to do 
Diffic lt'e one ' s duty. One must learn to value 
in the way of duty above reputation, and the con- 
duty sciousness of right done, more than the 

world's praise. There are temptations to be overcome 
and vices to be shunned. Life is not a steady 
march to victory with beating drums and flying 
banners. There may be much faltering and stumbling, 
and many defeats. But if the spirit is strong and 



THE STUDY OF MORALS 7 

the heart upright, no one need despair of ultimate 
success. 

"When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' 
The youth replies, <I can.'" 

The most honored names in the world are of those 
who have stood for duty, even in the face of death. 
When Mary Lyon, the founder of Mt. Holyoke Col- 
lege, was asked if she did not fear a contagious 
disease that had attacked some of the students, she 
replied: "I fear nothing in the universe but that I 
shall not know all my duty, or fail to do it." In a 
week she had passed away. At the battle of 
Trafalgar the following words were signalled to the 
fleet by Lord Nelson: "England expects every man 
to do his duty," and when he fell, mortally wounded, 
his last words were, "Thank God, I have done my 
duty!" 

" 'What shall I do to be forever known?' 
'Thy duty ever.' 
1 This did full many who yet sleep unknown.' 

4 Oh! never, never!' 
Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown 

Whom thou know'st not? 
By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown, 
Divine their lot." 

— Schiller. 

QUESTIONS 
What is the meaning of " Hitch your wagon to a star"? 
Mention some moral principles learned through association 
with our fellow men. 



8 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Is there ever more than one right relation in each case ? 
Illustrate a right relation in any case. 
Give an illustration of duty ; of virtue. 

In doing our duty, of what reward may we always be sure? 
Are material rewards more likely to come when we do our 
duty ? 



Duties to the Body 



Food and Drink 

Temperance 

Intemperance in Eating 

Intemperance in Drinking 

Use of Tobacco 

Anger, Hatred, Envy, Jealousy, Fear 

Bacon's Advice 

£9 



'•''The first duty of every 7tzan 
is to be a good animal" 



LESSON II 

DUTIES TO THE BODY 
u The first duty of every man is to be a good animal." 

There is an old saying," Mens sana in corporesano" 
which means, "a sound mind in a sound body," and 
when a strong mind is found in a frail body, the 
exception only proves the rule. Mind and body are 
so interdependent that whatever affects the one affects 
the other. A writer on this subject says: "The 
whole of a man goes into his work. Poet, or orator, or 
philosopher, or man of business — his body follows 
him, and holds his pen, and shapes his thoughts, and 
imparts its quality to all he does or says." 

Will-power is a matter of strong nerves and mus- 
cles, which, in turn, depend upon good circulation, 
and good circulation upon digestion; and so we 
might continue to trace the different processes in 
detail, all of which would prove the dependence of 
will upon health. As morals are largely concerned 
with the will, we can easily understand the close 
relation between morals and health — a relation so 
close that the study of morals may with propriety 
begin with the consideration of the duties we owe to 
the body. "Our work," says Montaigne, "is not to 
train a soul by itself alone, nor a body by itself alone, 



12 LESSONS ON MORALS 

but to train a man; and in man soul and body can 
never be divided." 

Physiology, hygiene, and our own experience lay 
down certain laws for keeping the body in a healthy 
condition, and ethics tells us how important it is to 
observe these laws. 

Food and drink are our first consideration, since 
F - we cannot exist without them ; and they 

and drink thus become a most important element 
of conduct. The appetite for food is a natural and 
necessary one. Food tastes good to the hungry and 
drink to the thirsty, and as long as this pleasure 
accompanies eating and drinking in a natural way it 
aids digestion and promotes health. The more we 
enjoy food up to a certain limit the better. But the 
danger is that we shall eat what we like, and as much 
as we like, without regard to consequences, or that 
we shall think more of the pleasure of eating than of 
the good it will accomplish in building up a healthy 
body. By living to eat we turn a wise provision of 
nature into a practice that injures body and soul. 
Dr. Jarvis, of Boston, once wrote: "If a weaver, 
when he has woven his web, should put into his 
loom a parcel of sticks and wire, and then set the 
loom in motion just for the pleasure of seeing it move, 
or perhaps in the hope that the loom would, out of 
these hard materials, make cloth as well as out of 
cotton and wool, he would do a very foolish act; but 



DUTIES TO THE BODY 13 

not more foolish than when he has eaten enough for 

nutrition, to eat indigestible and innutritious food just 

for the pleasure of eating." 

In undertaking a voyage it is necessary, first of all, 

to have a ship that will float and hold _ 

r m Temperance 

together till the port is gained. So in this 

voyage of life ; a body sound enough to hold together 
till the port of three score and ten is gained, comes 
first in all wise considerations. God has given most 
of us sound bodies, and the main thing is to know how 
to keep them sound. Food and drink play an import- 
ant part in this matter. If appetite were left un- 
restrained, we should eat so much of what we like 
that we would weaken our stomachs, enfeeble our 
muscles, impair our minds, and shorten our lives. 
But self-control, under the name of temperance, 
comes to our aid and holds appetite in check, tells it 
to go where it ought, and compels it to stop when it 
has gone far enough. Temperance is a virtue, since 
it calls the will into play and makes us the masters 
rather than the slaves of appetite. 

A temperate person is always at his best. He can 
work hard, study hard, play a good game, and have a 
clear head, because he has a surplus of vitality to 
throw into whatever he undertakes. Best of all, he 
is happy. The London Lancet says that happiness is 
the physical result of a brisk and healthy circulation, 
and good circulation depends upon temperate habits. 



*4 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Perhaps we ought to study the consequences of 
Intemperance eating and drinking too much, although 
in eating they are not at all pleasant to contem- 
plate. Intemperance in eating is gluttony, and is an 
odious and disgusting habit, worse if possible in its 
effect upon the individual than is drunkenness. One 
who constantly indulges his appetite for food to 
excess becomes gross and coarse in his nature, with 
no higher aim in life than that of eating. Gluttony 
also destroys health. It is a vice, as it implies that 
the taste for food and drink has the mastery; and as 
Nature, with the greatest certainty, follows the 
violation of her laws with a penalty, so this vice 
indulged in for the pleasure of the moment is sure to 
entail suffering in the end, and more suffering than 
the pleasure of indulgence will offset. When we eat 
what is not good for us or more than is good for us, 
we are in danger of forming this most detestable and 
destructive habit. 

The great danger in the use of alcoholic drinks is 
Intemperance that ^ creates an appetite for itself which 
in drinking C an rarely be resisted. Moderation in 
drinking is a cheat. The habit steals upon one 
unawares. It occupies more and more of a person's 
thought, takes more and more of his time and money, 
until he is unable to think of or care for much else. 
It is a destroyer of health. Dr. Richardson, of 
London, says: " Among the chief sources of the 



DUTIES TO THE BODY 15 

reduction of vitality alcohol stands first ; it kills in the 
present and impairs the vital powers of succeeding 
generations. If England were redeemed from its use 
the vitality of the nation would rise one-third in its 
value." The drinking habit in this dry, nerve-exciting 
climate of America is much more injurious than it is 
in England. What, then, must be the loss of vitality 
here? Dr. T. T. Mungersays: " The simple fact for 
a rational being to consider and govern himself by is 
that every time he drinks a glass of liquor, whatever 
its per cent, of alcohol, he lessens his vitality; he has 
just so much less power to work with, less ability to 
endure, less nervous force for fine efforts, less tough- 
ness to put against difficulties, less time to live." 
Considering the drinking habit in its broadest effects, 
it is a vice whose terrible evils we can hardly state in 
terms too strong. "It darkens the face of the whole 
world. It destroys health and life, it weakens the 
will, it ruins the body and degrades the soul. It 
incites to crime. It impoverishes the family. It 
desolates the home. It imperils every human interest, 
and throws a shadow over every prospect of life." 
Touch not, taste not, handle not, is the motto for the 
young who would escape this pernicious and dangerous 
habit. 

Every physician knows that tobacco is a debilitant. 
When used in early life it tends to stunt use of 
the growth, weaken the eyes, shatter tobacco 



1 6 LESSONS ON MORALS 

the nerves, and reduce vitality in general. It subtracts 
from energy and lessens one's powers of physical 
endurance. No athlete in training for a contest 
would think of using tobacco. Statistics, taken at 
the Naval Academy at Annapolis and elsewhere, 
show that the use of tobacco is the exception with 
scholars at the head, and the rule with scholars at 
the foot, of the class. 

Since the organization of anti-cigarette leagues in 
the schools, there has been a growing sentiment 
against the use of tobacco by school boys. A report 
from one well-known high school is most encouraging. 
The pupils of this school were preparing to give an 
entertainment, and in pursuance of their plans they 
made arrangements with a local playwright for an 
original one-act drama. In due time the play was 
written and sent to the young man who was acting 
as manager. A day or two later he appeared at 
the office of the author with the manuscript in his 
hand. 

"I'll have to ask you to make a change in this," he 
said. 

"What is the matter with it?" asked the play- 
wright. 

"In one of the scenes, you know," rejoined the 
other, "a young man comes on the stage smoking a 
cigarette." 

"Yes." 



DUTIES TO THE BODY 17 

"Well, there isn't a boy in our school who will take 
the part/' 

These passions, often considered as pertaining to 
ethics alone, may properly be mentioned . . , , 

in connection with intemperance in its envy, jealousy, 
relation to the body. When indulged to ear 

excess they are as destructive in their effects as are 
other physical forms of intemperance. They wear 
upon the nerves and reduce vitality. They must be 
classed among the vices, since they show a lack of 
control over circumstances, and they often lead to 
consequences as serious as those following drunken- 
ness. When the penalty, which always follows vice, 
does not come through the enforcement of the civil 
law, the moral law is almost sure to punish with 
shame and remorse. Shakespeare understood this 
when he said : 

" Heat not a furnace for your foes so hot 
That it do singe yourself." 

Our duty is to hold these dark passions in check, and 
to be happy and sweet-tempered, for the good, not 
only of our body, but of our soul. 

Bacon sums up the matter of intemperance by a 
bit of advice which, if followed, would Bacon's 
lead to moderation and temperance. He advice 
says: "It is a safer conclusion to say, 'This agreeth 
not well with me, therefore I will not continue it,' 
rather than this : ' I find no hurt of this, therefore I 



1 8 LESSON'S ON MORALS 

may use it.' ' He means that we should not wait till 
we are hurt by a habit before giving it up, but should 
find out its tendency and act accordingly. 

"Eat and drink such an exact quantity as suits the 
constitution of thy body in reference to the services 
of the mind." — Benjamin Franklin, 

QUESTIONS 

What is our duty with regard to health ? 

Show by illustration the close relation between mind and 
body. 

To the natural tendency of health toward morality ? 

Can you think of an instance when a violation of the laws 
of health would be right ? 

What is the place of ethics in this subject? 

Why are food and drink important elements of conduct ? 

What would be the result if the appetite for food and drink 
were left to itself ? 

What is temperance ? 

Why is temperance a virtue? 

Discuss the use of tobacco. 

By what is vice always followed ? 

What penalty follows intemperance in eating and drinking ? 

What are the rewards of temperance ? 



Cleanliness 





m 


Duty of Cleanliness 


Cleanliness 


a Recommendation 


"Cl 


eanliness 


is Next 


to Godliness" 




t>m 



"What worship there is in mere 
washing ! n 



19 



LESSON III 

CLEANLINESS 

Our common well-being depends upon what may 
possibly appear trivial. Cleanliness is the commonest 
of common things, and yet it is of the utmost im- 
portance. Physiologists teach us its physical effects. 
There can be no perfect health without it. But 
in addition to its wholesomeness it is a mark 
of civilization. It is said that the degree of 
civilization to which any nation has attained, can 
be measured by the amount of soap it uses. Un- 
clean people are, then, uncivilized. People are 
cleanly in proportion as they are decent and self- 
respecting. 

It is our duty to keep ourselves scrupulously clean, 
We owe this duty to ourselves on the D U ty of 
ground of health. We owe it to our- cleanliness 
selves and to others on the ground of respect. If we 
mingle with others we positively have no right to 
make ourselves offensive to them, especially in our 
personal habits. If we do not care enough for our- 
selves to keep clean, we cannot complain if others 
place no higher estimate upon us than we by our 
uncleanliness place upon ourselves. 



2 2 LESSONS ON MORALS 

A gentleman advertised for a boy to assist him in 
Cleanliness a ^ s °ffi ce - About fifty applicants pre- 
recommenda- sented themselves. In a short time he 
chose one out of this number and dis- 
missed the rest. 

"I should like to know/' said a friend, "on what 
ground you selected that boy, who had not a single 
recommendation," 

"You are mistaken, " said the gentleman; "he had 

a great many recommendations. When I talked with 

him, I noticed that his clothes were carefully brushed, 

his hair was in good order, his teeth were white, his 

hands and nails were clean. Don't you call those 

things recommendations? I would give more for 

what I can tell about a boy by using my eyes for ten 

minutes than for all the fine letters he can bring me." 

It may seem at first that this is placing too high a 

" Cleanliness is va l ue upon cleanliness, but when we 

next to stop to think of the low estimate we put 

godliness" U p 0n one w j 10 j s filthy and slovenly in 

person, we can easily believe that the frequent bath 
and the scrupulous care of the body nearly approach 
religion. Among the Eastern nations generally, 
cleanliness is considered not only as being next to 
godliness, but as being a part of godliness itself. 
The Mohammedans devote almost as much care to 
the erection of baths as they do to the erection of 
mosques, and the public bath is usually found near 



CLEANLINESS 23 

the place of worship, so that the faithful may have 
the ready means of purification previous to their wor- 
ship. "What worship,'' says a great writer, "there 
is in mere washing! It is perhaps one of the most 
moral things a person in ordinary circumstances has 
it in his power to do. The consciousness of perfect 
outer pureness, how it radiates on thee, with cunning, 
symbolic influences to thy very soul! Thou hast an 
increased tendency to all good things whatsoever." 

Children are made fretful, impatient, and bad- 
tempered by uncleanliness. Older people are 
degraded and made reckless by it. Neither physical 
nor moral beauty can exist without cleanliness, which 
indicates self-respect, and is the root of many virtues, 
especially those of purity, modesty, delicacy and 
decency. As the mind is, to a very great extent, 
influenced by external conditions, we may almost say 
that purity of thought and feeling results from 
habitual purity of body. Habit, as regards outward 
things, stamps itself deeply upon the whole character, 
moral and intellectual. 

QUESTIONS 

What are the teachings of physiology in the matter of clean- 
liness? 

How is cleanliness ethical? 

What effect upon the character has slovenliness ? 

Why was the neat and cleanly boy selected for the office work? 

What correspondence between cleanliness and godliness? 



Dress and Surroundings 



Slovenliness 

Fastidiousness 

The "Golden Mean" in Dress 

Advice to Boys in Regard to Dress 

Frivolous Dress Leads to Frivolous 
Character 

Advice to Girls in Regard to Dress 

Importance of Clothes 



t& 



"Make it a point to look as well as you can, even if 
you know no one will see you " 



25 



LESSON IV 

DRESS AND SURROUNDINGS 

The first step taken by barbaric races toward 
civilization is shown in their rude attempts at clothing 
and sheltering themselves. This fact will help us to 
understand the propriety of placing the subject of this 
lesson in the list to be considered under the head of 
morals. It is one of the duties we owe the body to 
protect it from the rigors of the weather, and it is a 
necessity for us to be decently clothed and housed, 
if we respect ourselves or if we would have others 
respect us. Even attractiveness of dress and sur- 
roundings is a duty. Attractiveness does not neces- 
sarily involve greater expense than does its opposite. 
Garments that fit, colors that harmonize, bright, 
cheerful rooms, cost little more, except in thought 
and attention, than do unbecoming clothes and 
unsightly rooms. The poorest can afford to be neat 
and clean, and these qualities are in themselves 
attractive as opposed to uncleanliness and slovenliness. 

Dr. Hyde, in his Ethics, draws a vivid picture of 

a sloven, as follows : " A sloven is known 

, , . ... . , , r ,. . . , Slovenliness 

by his dirty hands and race, disheveled 

hair, and tattered and soiled garments. His house 

27 



28 LESSONS ON MORALS 

is in confusion, his grounds are littered with rubbish, 
he eats at an untidy table and sleeps in an unmade 
bed." This is anything u but a pleasant picture, but 
it serves to prove that when a person is a sloven, 
things get the upper hand, and he is as much a slave 
to circumstances as is the drunkard to appetite. 

A modern writer says: " There are two kinds of 
young girls, those whose hair and shoes are slatternly, 
whose gloves are broken, whose boxes are always in 
confusion; and those who, however poorly dressed, 
always impress you by their personal neatness and 
who invariably leave a room in better order than they 
found it. These are little signs which show the un- 
healthy, disorderly mind, or the sweet, pure nature in 
healthy development. Only a few women can be 
beautiful, but every woman can charm by the perfect 
purity and daintiness of her attire. Remember, 
girls, that for every-day purposes it is better to be 
neat than picturesque, clean than aesthetic. " 

There is, of course, another side to this subject. 

There can be too much thought given 
Fastidiousness . . _ . .. 

to dress and appearance, fastidious- 
ness is better than slovenliness; but still, extreme 
attention to dress and to nothing else indicates an 
empty head. While slovenliness is low, fastidious- 
ness or dudishness is belittling and petty. 

Just how much attention to give to this matter 
of personal appearance is an important question. 



DRESS AND SURROUNDINGS 29 

We should, of course, never dress extravagantly — 
that is, beyond our means. If we allow 
ourselves to be influenced by what " golden mean" 
others wear, and attempt to vie with in dress 
them when we cannot afford it, tilings get the mas- 
tery over us as much as they do in slovenliness. It 
is right to study effects of color and material, and to 
have clothes made in the prevailing style, but an 
extreme in style shows bad taste and a weak mind. 
It is also right to put individuality into dress, that 
it may be becoming — not for the purpose of having 
something different from others. Lord Chesterfield, 
in writing to his son, while advising him to buy 
good material and to have his clothes made with 
" extreme precision," says: "Any affectation what- 
soever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the 
understanding." Our sense of propriety should tell 
us how to adapt our dress to different occasions. 

Naturally boys do not give so much thought to 
dress and appearance as do girls; but Ad . , 
if they realized how good it is to look boys in regard 
at a clean, well-dressed boy, they would t0 dress 
give older people a chance to enjoy the sight more 
frequently. Cleanliness and neatness of attire would 
also make them feel greater respect for themselves 
and, as a rule, more strongly inclined to good 
behavior. It is related of a man who had met with 
misfortune, had lost family and property, and was 



30 LESSONS ON MORALS 

too poor to buy comfortable clothes, that by dint 

of scraping here and there he obtained money 

enough to keep his shoes well polished, and up at 

the heel. The story goes on to say that this one 

thing kept up his courage and self-respect and 

eventually raised him from poverty and despondency 

and made him a man again. 

To illustrate the opposite of the above incident, 

Charles Dudley Warner tells of a 
Frivolous dress 

leads g°°d, sensible woman, who had always 

to frivolous dressed well but plainly, whose eye was 

once captivated by a red bonnet. She 

purchased it, but it did not match the rest of her 

clothing, and her wardrobe had to undergo an entire 

change before the red bonnet became serviceable. 

Her friends hardly knew her in her new style of 

dress. Slowly but surely it began to affect her 

character, and in time she lost all her previous taste 

for reading and study and the better enjoyments 

of life, and gave herself up to frivolity. 

So great a man as John Ruskin gives the following 

Ad . . advice to girls: " Dress in bright colors 

girls in regard if they become you, and buy your dress 

to dress - ^ fashion. If vou can afford it, 

get your dress made by a good dress -maker with 

utmost obtainable precision and perfection, and then 

with a ribbon, or a flower, or some bit of ornament, 

you can have a feeling of self-respect and satis- 



DRESS AND SURROUNDINGS 31 

faction that invariably comes with being well-dressed. 
Make it a point to look as well as you can, even 
if you know no one will see you." 

Clothes are important because one is judged by 
them. Our first impression of people importance of 
is gained from their general appearance, clothes 

of which dress is one of the prominent features. 
Although they may not be a true index to character, 
neatness and becomingness of dress seem to indicate 
some regard for propriety, some love of order and 
beauty, and some strength of will and purpose 
beneath the garments. 

"All things visible are emblems; what thou seest 
is not there on its own account ; strictly taken it is 
not there at all. Matter exists only spiritually and 
to represent some idea and body it forth. Hence 
clothes, as despicable as we think them, are so 
unspeakably significant. Clothes, from the king's 
mantle downward, are emblematic. " — Carlyle. 

" I never saw a house too fine to shelter the 
human head. Elegance fits man." — Oliver Wendell 
Holmes. 

QUESTIONS 

What are our plainest duties in regard to clothing and 
shelter? 

Discuss attractiveness of dress. 



32 LESSONS ON MORALS 

How can the humblest home be made attractive? 

In what respect are a drunkard and a sloven alike? 

What is the "golden mean" in dress? 

How does it affect us to be well and tastefully dressed? 

Why are clothes important? 

Give the substance of Chesterfield's and Ruskin's advice. 



Exercise, Recreation, Rest 



Kind of Exercise and Recreation 

Certain Dangers of Exercise 
and Recreation 

Duty of Rest 

Two Contrasting Pictures 

Difficulty of Laying Down Rules 
for Recreation 

Cheerfulness the Effect of 
Exuberant Health 



tm 



" To possess health is to make one feel 
prepared for any emergency " 



33 



LESSON V 

EXERCISE, RECREATION, AND REST 

Physiology teaches us that exercise is necessary 
to properly develop our muscles. Without it, the 
muscles remain undeveloped or shrink up and be- 
come paralyzed, digestion and circulation are imper- 
fect, and ill-health results. Every power we have 
is strengthened by use and weakened by disuse ; 
consequently, the only way to preserve our powers 
unimpaired is to keep them active. Both mind and 
body should be exercised in order to make them 
strong. Recreation may be included in exercise, 
but it sometimes means a change of occupation, or 
amusement, for the sake of rest. 

The question of what forms exercise and recrea- 
tion should take is quite a difficult one tt d f 
to answer. Little children get exercise exercise and 
through the play- impulse, which is recreation 
nature's provision for them, and older people get 
it through their work ; but boys and girls who are 
too old to play and not old enough to begin the 
work of life, and who expend much of their time 
in study, have quite a serious question to decide in 
this matter. 

35 



36 LESSONS OAT MORALS 

It is allowed by all who have made a study of the 
subject that the best exercise is that of which we are 
least conscious. A walk through the meadows and 
in the woods, or in the park, a climb over the hills, a 
skate on the pond, a ride on wheel or on horseback, 
hunting, fishing, swimming, sailing, rowing — these 
are the best ways of taking exercise, for we have 
such pleasure in them that the thought of physical 
benefit, although we are getting it in full measure 
and a thousand other good things at the same time, 
does not occur to us. 

Next to these outdoor sports come the games of 
baseball, football, lawn-tennis, croquet, golf and 
hockey. Also, in these days, when systems of phys- 
ical culture are reduced to a science, it is well to 
take advantage of them as conducted in gymnasiums, 
if nothing better offers. But as these exercises lack 
the element of freedom which characterizes outdoor 
sports, they fall far below them in value. Moreover, 
students particularly need outdoor exercise to coun- 
teract the effects of the impure air usually found in 
school-rooms. 

A danger connected with exercise and recreation 
Certain dangers should be mentioned. Sometimes the 
of exercise and recreation becomes attractive for the 

recrea ion unwholesome excitement it brings, or 
from a spirit of competition that enters into it, rather 
than for the healthful effect which is the legitimate 



EXERCISE, RECREATION, AND REST 37 

aim. When football is played with savage ferocity, 
and baseball players are urged on by the cheers or 
jeers of stakeholders, the healthful element drops out 
of these games. A game loses its value to health 
when its excitement is drawn from any other source 
than from the game itself. 

The artificial indoor amusements, like billiards, 
card-playing, dancing, theatre-going, and others, are 
more likely to be sought as excitement for excite- 
ment's sake, thus perverting the true aim of recrea- 
tion as a renewer of our powers into a ruinous drain 
upon them. Less danger of this kind attends the 
outdoor sports of boating, climbing, etc., and for that 
reason they should occupy as large a place as possible 
in our plans for exercise and amusement. 

It is difficult to lay down hard-and-fast rules for 
exercise and recreation. Even in a Difficulty of 
system of physical culture one may be a y in 2 own 
more injured than helped unless the recreation 
exercise is prescribed by an expert. As for other 
modes of recreation, so much depends upon the asso- 
ciations they involve in different localities that it is 
impossible to say what one should be adopted under 
varying conditions. It is here that ethics can help 
us by enabling us to see clearly the important part 
recreation must play in every healthy life, and to see 
with equal clearness the danger of giving way to a 
craving for constant and unnatural excitement. 



3^ LESSONS ON MORALS 

There is as great a duty in rest as in recreation. 

Healthy boys and girls with wise parents 
Duty of rest „ / , 1 

usually take rest because nature de- 
mands it or parents require it, but sometimes they 
are tempted to go to extremes in exercise, being 
overcome by the attractions of games and amuse- 
ments, and .allow hours of rest to be infringed upon. 
Ethics declares that nothing is right which wastes 
vitality. Lack of rest and sleep is a great waster of 
vitality; consequently to give them their due propor- 
tion of time, is a duty we owe to body and mind. 
One writer says of sleep: "To tamper with it, to de- 
fraud it, to take it fitfully, is to throw away life itself." 

In closing the subject of duties to the body we can 
sum up the matter in no better way than by 
presenting two contrasting pictures. 

" One who is enfeebled by great neglect of self finds 
Two contrast- himself unequal to the demands of his 
ing pictures WO rk and, soured by the consequent 
dissatisfaction with himself, becomes alienated from 
his fellows. The tide of life becomes low and feeble 
and he can neither overcome obstacles by his own 
strength nor attract to himself the help of others, and 
thus life itself becomes a burden." 

The other picture is that of a man best known by 
the name of Christopher North: "The grandest 
physique of any man of his century, robust, athletic, 
broad across the back, firm set upon his limbs, his 



EXERCISE, RECREATION, AND REST 39 

eyes of clearest blue, and blood flowing in his cheek, 
he would run for hours over the hills, bareheaded, his 
yellow hair streaming behind him, stretching out his 
hands and shouting aloud in simple exultation of life." 
To possess health like this is to make Cheerfulness 
one feel prepared for any emergency. ee ec o 

No obstacles seem too great to be over- health 

come. Alexander must have felt like this when he 
started out to conquer the world. Exuberant health 
brings cheerfulness ; and an inexhaustible supply of 
cheerfulness and good nature not only wins friends, 
but goes a long way toward success in life. 

" Cheerfulness is just as natural to the heart of a 
man in strong health as color to his cheek; and when- 
ever there is habitual gloom there must be either 
bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe labor, 
or erring habits of life." — Ruskin. 



QUESTIONS 

When exercise is lacking what is the result physically ? 
When exercise is lacking what is the result mentally ? 
Show that lack of exercise and recreation is unethical. 
Give arguments in favor of out-door sports. 
Mention dangers connected with recreation. 
Discuss the pros and cons of football. 

How is it possible to know when cards and other games are 
harmful ? 

When is it right to trench upon hours of rest ? 



Industry 



mi 

Work 

Work and Genius 

Method, Intelligence, and Skill 
in Work 

Provision for Self-support 

"It is by Constant Labor that 
Kings Govern" 

Idleness and Laziness 

Misdirected Industry 

Ruskin's Advice to Girls 

9m 



"Industry is the golden key that unlocks 
the gates of fortune" 



41 



LESSON VI 

INDUSTRY 

So much stress has been placed upon recreation 

and rest that it now seems best to turn 

11 Work 

our attention to work in order that we 

may keep the elements of conduct justly balanced in 
our minds. 

Carlyle says: "All work is noble; work alone is 
noble. Blessed is he that hath found his work; let 
him ask no other blessedness." It is well to know 
what one great man thinks of work, and it is believed 
that he voices the opinion of all sensible people. 
Because we get tired of work and look forward with 
eagerness to the time for rest, we are sometimes 
disposed to consider it an evil instead of a blessing. 
We have to confess, also, that few would work except 
from necessity; but this is no argument against it. 
It is a wise provision that all the necessities of life 
are the product of labor, so that nearly every one 
must work in order to live. Those who inherit 
wealth and do not have to earn their own living 
should spend money and leisure in the service of 
charity or in doing something to benefit their fellow- 
men. It has been said that an able-bodied person 

43 



44 LESSONS ON MORALS 

who does not leave to the world at least as much as 
he takes out of it is a beggar and a thief. 

Young people are apt to think that one who is 
Work and successful in life must be possessed 
genius f some superior natural qualification 

— that he must be a genius. But the testimony 
of the greatest men is that the ability to work 
has been the most important factor in their 
careers. The great painter Turner, when asked the 
secret of his success, replied: "I have no secret but 
hard work." Daniel Webster said: "To work, and 
not to genius, I owe my success." Bryant wrote 
Thanatopsis a hundred times before publishing it. 
George Eliot said oiMiddlemarch : " I began it a young 
woman; I finish it an old woman." Hume wrote 
thirteen hours a day for several years to produce his 
History of England. There is a well-known story 
of an old farmer who, when on his death-bed, called 
his three sons around him to impart to them an 
important secret. "My sons," said he, "a great treas- 
ure lies hidden in the estate which I am about to 
leave to you." "Where is it hidden?" asked the 
sons in a breath. "I am about to tell you. You will 
have to dig for it ■ — ." But he died before finishing 
the sentence. Forthwith the sons set to work upon 
the long-neglected fields and turned up every sod and 
clod upon the estate. They discovered no treasure, 
but they learned to work. And when the fields were 



INDUSTRY 45 

sown and the harvest had come, lo! the yield was 
wonderful in consequence of their thorough tillage. 
Then it was that they realized the meaning of their 
wise old father's words. 

In order to raise himself above the level of a 
machine and to secure the best results, Method 
the workman must, besides capacity for intelligence and 
doing, have certain other accomplish- s lx in wor 
ments. He acquires these, not by chance, but 
by using his eyes and ears and trying with all his 
might to understand his business. He is successful 
only when he plans his work systematically and 
arranges it with a view to the least outlay of time and 
energy to do it well — when he concentrates his full 
power on the task in hand. When Mr. Edison was 
asked how to succeed, he answered: " Don't look at 
the clock." That is, forget yourself in your work; be 
possessed by it. 

" Thought is the father of labor." The great in- 
ventions and discoveries are the product of intelli- 
gence and labor combined. As a boy the inventor 
of the suspension-bridge carefully noticed things 
and thought how he might put knowledge gained in 
that way to some practical use. As a man he still 
retained his powers of observation, and learned from 
the web of a spider which he found one morning 
stretched across his path how to construct a sus- 
pension-bridge. Keen observation and close study 



46 LESSONS ON MORALS 

make intelligent effort possible. Intelligent and 
persistent effort brings skill, which raises the work- 
man to an artisan and the artisan to an artist, and of 
which the material rewards are constant demand and 
high value for the work produced. 

The increasing value of skilled labor is aptly 
illustrated by the following: " Labor will raise the 
value of five dollars' worth of crude iron into ten 
dollars by converting it into horseshoes; to one 
hundred and eighty dollars by converting it into table- 
knives ; to six thousand eight hundred dollars by con- 
verting it into needles; to two hundred thousand 
dollars by making it into watch-springs; and to four 
hundred thousand dollars by making it into hair- 
springs.' ' 

Boys and girls who are at school and are living 
Provision for upon the fruits of the labor of their 
self-support parents, are not doing wrong, but to 
continue this dependence after they have become 
able-bodied men and women is to live an unworthy 
life. Every boy and every girl should, if possible, be 
trained for some trade, business, art, or profession. 
To neglect this duty is to run the risk of enforced 
dependence later in life. A girl's sphere is the home 
if she is needed there, if she can make it more pleas- 
ant by her presence, or if she can render assistance 
to her mother; but the time may come when she 
will be obliged to support herself, and the safest 



INDUSTRY 47 

course is to make provision for such a time by special 
training in some line of work. 

Sometimes a great work is so quickly accomplished 
as to seem the result of a sudden in- «iti s by con- 
spiration. It is said that Julia Ward stant labor that 
Howe arose one night at twelve and ln S s g° vern 
wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic in a 
few moments. But she never could have written the 
poem had not years of study and thought and culture 
of noble feeling prepared her for it. A sculptor 
executed a bust for a nobleman for which he charged 
fifty sequins. The nobleman, considering the price 
extravagant, said: "You charge me fifty sequins for a 
bust that costs you only ten day's labor !" The artist 
replied: "You forget I have been thirty years learn- 
ing to make that bust in ten days." And if we knew 
the history of all the great productions either in art, 
science, or trade, we should find them to be the out- 
come of steady-going industry. 

"Industry is the golden key that unlocks the gates 
of fortune." Spasmodic work accomplishes little. 
This fact should be appreciated by young people, 
who should be industrious in their school-work, for 
the purpose not only of accomplishing that work 
creditably and of acquiring knowledge, but of forming 
the habit of industry, so necessary to their success in 
after-life. Industry and its twin-sister, Perseverance, 
are said to conquer the world. One not gifted with 



48 LESSONS ON MORALS 

aptness to learn often accomplishes by steady and 
continuous plodding more than his brilliant school- 
mate. Even if he does not excel those who are 
quicker, he does his work thoroughly and is sure to 
have an honorable standing in school. All industrious 
men have not accumulated great fortunes, but it is 
the exception, and not the rule, when they have 
not acquired a moderate competence which has freed 
them from the harassing cares of poverty and 
enabled them to maintain their respectability. 

The natural love of ease leads many to shun work 
Idleness and altogether or to seek the easiest work 

laziness there is and to do as little of that as 

possible. One who is thus inclined, and puts the 
love of his own ease above the duty of self-support is 
fortunate if he does not become a beggar and a tramp. 
Young people starting out in life with the idea of 
finding something easy to do will never be a success 
in business nor in anything else. William DeWitt 
Hyde describes the lazy man in a forcible manner: 
"What a lazy man does depends, not on what he 
knows it is best to do, but on how he happens to feel. 
If the work is hard, if it is cold or rainy, if something 
breaks or things do not go to suit him, he gives up 
and leaves his work undone. He is always waiting 
for something to turn up ; but since nothing turns up 
for our benefit except what we turn up ourselves, he 
never finds the opportunity that suits him." 



INDUSTRY 49 

The old saying that " Satan finds mischief for idle 
hands to do" is often exemplified in school as well as 
elsewhere. When we are kept busy at useful work 
and are interested in it we are not apt to do wrong or 
think wrong, but idleness leaves the mind at the 
mercy of whatever thoughts may enter it and thus is 
the great foe to purity, uprightness, and earnestness 
of life. Idleness is the mother of poverty, vice, and 
crime. It is a fact that the idle are the most unhappy 
people in the world. A mind not regularly occupied 
is open to all sorts of discontents and envyings. 

There are certain people who cannot be accused of 
idleness, but who never accomplish Misdirected 
much. They overestimate their ability industry 

to do certain things and waste time and labor in their 
effort to perform a task for which they are unfitted. 
Others work industriously but accomplish nothing 
because they lack the element of despatch, which is 
a necessity to success in work. Spurgeon says: "I 
would as soon drop my halfpence down a well as to 
pay some people for work who only fidget you to see 
them all day creeping over a cabbage leaf." In all 
our undertakings we should decide first if they come 
within the limit of our possibilities, and then our 
industry will be wisely directed. 

It is said that* "all work and no play make Jack 

a dull boy." There is danger of being 

. , .11 ii Overwork 

overmdustrous, even in school, and here 



50 LESSONS ON MORALS 

again ethics would say that whatever lessens vitality is 
immoral. It is a charge made against many schools, 
and with some justice, that the requirements are too 
great, and students are obliged to overwork and there- 
by injure their health. If a choice must be made 
between school and health, health is the first consid- 
eration. The chief object of work is self-support. 
Overwork destroys health, and thus defeats its own 
ends. We hesitate to call it a vice, but it is an ap- 
proach to it in this country; and although idleness 
and laziness are more ignoble, the folly of overwork 
is equally apparent and equally disastrous to health. 

"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He 
shall stand before kings." 

" The heights by great men reached and kept 
Were not attained by sudden flight; 
But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night.*' 

"No idle man, however rich he may be, can feel 
the genuine independence of him who earns his daily 
bread. The idle man stands outside of God's plan ; 
and the truest self-respect, the noblest independence, 
and the most genuine dignity are not his." — Smiles. 

"Resolve to do every day some work that is useful. 
Ruskin's ad- Learn first the economy of the kitchen ; 
vice to girls the good and bad quality of every com- 
mon article of food, and the simplest and best mode 



INDUSTRY 51 

of their preparation. When you have time, help in 
the cooking and learn how to make everything as 
nice as possible. Learn the sound qualities of all 
useful stuffs, and make every thing of the best you 
can get. Every day, some little piece of useful cloth- 
ing sewn with your own fingers as strongly as it can 
be stitched; and embroider it, or otherwise beautify 
it moderately with fine needlework, such as a girl may 
be proud of having done. You must be, to the best 
of your strength, usefully employed during the greater 
part of the day so that you may be able at the end of 
it to say, as proudly as any peasant, that you have 
not eaten the bread of idleness." — John Ruskin. 

QUESTIONS 

Mention, if possible, anything that can be obtained without 
work. 

Why is some special training in work desirable for boys? 
For girls ? 

If our minds are not regularly and well employed what is 
the result? 

What is industry? 

If any difference between industry and perseverance, state it. 

If your services were not required at home, and if your 
parents were able to support you, would you prefer to earn 
your own living? Why? 

Read from Whittier's Songs of Labor, Parton's Captains of 
Industry, and Gannett's Blessed be Drudgery. 



Rconomy 



Property 

Provision for the Future 

Self-denial 

"Many a Little makes a Mickle" 

Thrifty Ways 

Wastefulness and Debt 

Poverty 

Miserliness and Avarice 

Rewards of Economy 



"Economy is the daughter of Prudence, the sister of 
Temperance, and the mother of Liberty" 



53 



LESSON VII 

ECONOMY 

As has been stated in a previous lesson, the chief 
object of industry is self-support, and 
in order to attain that object we must 
not only work industriously, but save the fruits of our 
toil. Savings constitute what we call property. 
This does not mean exclusively money, but all those 
acquisitions which serve to clothe, feed, or protect us, 
for which money is an equivalent. Without property 
there would seemingly be nothing to bind society to- 
gether. Realize, if you can, the condition of affairs in 
your own town or city if no one owned property nor 
conducted a business. Such a state of things would 
destroy civilization, and we should sink into the hand- 
to-mouth existence of the savage. When property is 
once gained, unless it is carefully looked after, it 
takes to itself wings and flies away. " Unused land 
is overgrown by weeds; unused tools rust; food left 
exposed sours and molds. " It is as important to 
save and to take care of our savings as it is 
to earn; hence the gaining and preservation of 
property are one of the chief concerns of life and 
conduct. 

55 



5 6 LESSONS ON MORALS 

This is a lesson chiefly for the future. Young 
Provision for people, as a rule, have little opportunity 

the future for saving ; their time and efforts are 
needed for growth and education. The old should be 
free from the labor and anxiety of earning a living, so 
that they may spend their last days in enjoyment and 
repose. The best time for saving is during the early 
years of active life, and, though earnings may be 
small, by dint of strict economy one should put aside 
something for the benefit of those depending upon 
him, or for the time of sickness, accident, or old age. 
If a person fails to do this, if he " spends as he goes," 
although he may support himself in the present, he 
is not providing for his support in the future. Earn- 
ings provide for the wants of the hour, but it takes 
earnings and savings to provide for the needs of a life- 
time. 

Saving from small earnings calls for self-denial. 

It is as opposed to indulgence as drunk- 
Self-denial rr % 

enness to temperance. It means plain 

food, plain dress, few amusements that cost money, 

and above all the courage to say "No," manfully and 

resolutely, when the question of some unnecessary 

expenditure arises. Sir Charles Napier said there 

were many gallant young men in India and at home 

who were capable of performing the most desperate 

deeds of valor who could not say, " No, I can't afford 

it," to the invitation of pleasure and self-enjoyment. 



ECONOMY 57 

The following story shows what a little self-denial will 
accomplish : 

A young man went to a Philadelphia millionaire 
and asked pecuniary aid to start him in business. 

"Do you drink?" asked the millionaire. 

"Once in a while." 

"Stop it. Stop it for a year, and then come and 
see me." 

The young man broke off the habit at once, and at 
the end of the year went to see the millionaire again. 

"Do you smoke?" he asked. 

"Now and then." 

"Stop it. Stop it for a year, and then come and 
see me." 

The young man went home and broke away from 
the habit. It took him some time, but finally he 
accomplished his purpose and presented himself 
again. 

"Do you chew tobacco?" asked the philanthropist. 

"Yes, I do," was the desperate reply. 

"Stop it. Stop it for a year, and then come and 
see me again." 

The young man stopped it, but he never went back 
again, and when asked why, he replied that he knew 
exactly what the man's intentions were. "He would 
have told me that, as I have stopped drinking and 
smoking and chewing, I must have saved enough to 
start myself in business. And I have." 



58 LESSONS ON MORALS 

There is no royal road to wealth or prosperity. 

" Many a little To work hard > to im P rove smail oppor- 
makes a tunities, to economize, to keep out of 
debt, are the rules laid down by those 
who have achieved success in this direction. But not 
"to despise the day of small beginnings" is perhaps 
the most important consideration of all. Ask those 
who spend all as they make it why they do not put by 
a fraction of their daily earnings, and they will reply: 
"What good can the saving of a few cents a day or 
an occasional dollar do?" They do not consider to 
what enormous sums little savings and little spendings 
swell when continued through a series of years. As 
it is the minutes that make the hours, so it is the 
pennies that make the pounds, the cents that make 
the dollars. Suppose we figure definitely upon the 
trifling sum of five cents a day which most boys and 
girls can save by denying themselves some petty 
pleasure. It would mean thirty-five cents a week, 
eighteen dollars and twenty-five cents a year, and, in- 
vested at six per cent., six hundred and fifty dollars 
in twenty years. A wealthy man made the following 
statement: "I began work for fifty dollars a year. 
Out of this I supported my mother and myself and 
managed to save a little. The next year my salary 
was doubled, and also my savings." The savings of 
those two years became the foundation of millions. 
The great secret of success in accumulating prop- 



ECONOMY 59 

erty is not to spend all your earnings, however small 

your earnings or your savings may be. Says Lord 

Lytton: "If you can live upon ten shillings a week 

you can live upon nine shillings and eleven pence." 

The habit of economy rests upon that of industry, 

and in order to save with regularity one 

. Thrifty ways 

must keep steadily at an occupation. 

Nothing should be left at loose ends. Every business 
transaction should be exact. It is neither ungenerous 
nor ignoble to insist upon a full, straight-out bargain, 
and it falls in with the thrifty habit. It is important 
to keep a strict account of personal expenses, down 
to the penny. Keep such an account, tabulate its 
items at the close of the year — so much for neces- 
saries, so much for luxuries ■ — and listen to what it 
tells you. Washington, who was not a small man, 
did not disdain to watch his expenditures and scruti- 
nize every small outlay. 

Savings should be deposited in a savings-bank 
from the beginning. The possession of a bank-book 
gives one a feeling of dignity and independence. 
Indeed, it has been said that no one is quite respect- 
able in this nineteenth century, who has not a bank 
account. It prevents much useless spending, since 
it keeps the money out of one's hands and safely 
locked up where it cannot burn a hole in the pocket. 
Emerson says: "The clerk's dollar is light an4 
nimble and leaps out of his pocket." 



60 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Thrift teaches how to spend as well as how to save. 
Spend as liberally as is wise for present needs, and 
get the better thing — not the inferior. Rev. Dr. 
Munger says: " Beyond what is necessary for your 
bodily wants and well-being, spend upward — that 
is, for the higher faculties. Go buy a book, or jour- 
ney abroad, or bestow a gift." 

One who is wasteful buys what he does not need, 
Wasteful- throws away what might be of further 

ness and use, spends as fast as he gets, and is for- 
ever behindhand. Debt follows. Debts 
are easy to make, but hard to pay. Every young per- 
son starting out in life should resolve that he will 
do any work that is honorable and submit to the 
most pinching privation rather than to plunge into 
debt. 

Douglas Jerrold writes eloquently on this subject: 
"Be sure of it, he who dines out of debt, though his 
meal may be a biscuit and an onion, dines in 'the 
Apollo.' And then for raiment — what warmth in a 
threadbare coat, if the tailor's receipt be in the 
pocket? What Tyrian purple in the faded waist- 
coat, the vest not owed for! How glossy the well- 
worn hat if it covers not the aching head of a debtor? 
Debt, however, courteously offered, is the cup of a 
siren, and the wine, spiced and delicious though it 
may be, an eating poison. The man out of debt, 
though with a flaw in his jerkin, a crack is his shoe- 



ECONOMY 6 1 

leather, and a hole in his hat, is still the son of 
liberty, free as the singing lark above him ; but the 
debtor, what is he but a serf out upon a holiday, a 
slave to be reclaimed at any moment by his owner, 
the creditor!" 

Mr. Micawber puts the same matter more tersely : 

" Income, twenty pounds; expenditure, nineteen 
pounds, nineteen shillings and six pence: result — 
happiness. 

" Income, twenty pounds; expenditure, twenty 
pounds and six pence: result — misery." 

Continued poverty is, as a rule, the result of 
idleness and wastefulness. Sometimes, 
however, it seems unavoidable, and as 
such should be borne bravely. But we are not to 
think of it as good, and we are to get rid of it, if 
honor and honesty permit. 

" Poverty takes away so many means of doing 
good and produces so much inability to resist evil," 
says Samuel Johnson, "that it is by all virtuous 
means to be avoided." Mr. Jarvis says: "Among the 
poor there is less vital force, a lower tone of life, 
more ill-health, more weakness, more early death." 

The economist saves for the sake of the future as 
well as of present comfort and independ- Miserliness 
ence. The miser and the avaricious and avarice 
person save for greediness or for the love of money, 
which is the root of all evil — a love that narrows the 



62 LESSONS OAT MORALS 

soul and closes it against generous life and actions. 
Saving is not commendable when it engrosses all of 
one's thoughts, and leads one to find his deepest en- 
joyment, not in the culture of heart and mind, not in 
doing good, but in adding dollar to dollar and in 
making the pile higher and higher every year. 
"The poorest of all human beings is the man who is 
rich in gold but intellectually and spiritually bank- 
rupt. " Economy does not mean avarice, nor stingi- 
ness, nor penuriousness, but rather the ability to live 
well and to be generous. 

" There is a dignity in the very effort to save with 
Rewards of a worthy purpose, even though the at- 

economy tempt should not be crowned with great 
success. It produces a well regulated mind; it gives 
prudence a triumph over extravagance; it gives 
virtue the mastery over vice; it drives away care; it 
secures comfort. Saved money, however little, will 
help to dry up many a tear, will ward off many sor- 
sows. Possessed of even a little capital a man walks 
with a lighter step and his heart beats more cheerily." 
— Smiles. 

" To catch Dame Fortune's golden smile, 

Assiduous wait upon her; 
And gather gear by ev'ry wile 

That's justified by honor; 
Not for to hide it in a hedge, 

Nor for a train attendant, 

But for the glorious privilege 

Of being independent." _ , „ 

— Robert Burns. 



ECONOMY 63 

" The secret of all success is to know how to deny 
yourself." — Mrs. Olipkant. 

" Economy is the daughter of Prudence, the 
sister of Temperance and the mother of Liberty." — 
Johnson. 

" Wouldst thou shut up the avenues of ill, 
Pay every debt as if God wrote the bill." 

— Emerson. 

QUESTIONS 

How can young people save? 

What is of more value to the young than the amount saved? 
Why is it everybody's duty to save? 
State some reasons for not getting into debt. 
What are the effects of wastefulness? 
Is it a virtue to be penurious? 
What do you understand by thrift? 

What good qualities are related to the right use of money? 
Repeat the quotation from Robert Burns. 
Can you think of any advantage a poor boy has over a 
rich one ? 



Honesty 







m 








Exchange 




Integrity 


of Word and Deed 


HOxXESTY 


in 


School and 


in Games 


Illustrious 


Examples of 


Honesty 






Dishonesty 




The 


Reward of Honesty 






?® 





u If there were no honesty, it would be invented as 
a means of getting wealth " 



65 



LESSON VIII 

HONESTY 

In a perfectly savage state every man supplies 
directly all his own needs — his own 
clothing, his own food, his own instru- 
ments of the chase. One of the first steps in 
civilization is the division of labor. Each individual 
produces more of some particular thing than he needs 
for his own use, and he disposes of the surplus for 
some of the surplus production of others which he 
' needs or desires. Barter, trade, exchange, is set up 
in this way. Exchange enables people to specialize 
in something, and thus each one can produce to better 
advantage that for which his individual taste and 
aptitude fit him. The shoemaker can make shoes, 
the tailor coats, the farmer can raise grain, the car- 
penter build houses, and the physician attend the 
sick. At the same time exchange brings to each one 
shoes, coats, grain, houses, and medical attendance. 

To the tradesman, the merchant, and the manu- 
facturer honesty should be what honor integrity of 
is to the soldier. In the humblest call- word and deed 
ing there will always be found a chance for the 
exercise of this virtue. Hugh Miller speaks of the 

67 



68 LESSONS ON MORALS 

mason with whom he served his apprenticeship who 
put his conscience into every stone he laid. The true 
mechanic prides himself upon the thoroughness and 
solidity of his work, and the honest contractor upon 
the strict performance of his contract. The manu- 
facturer will find not only an honorable reputation 
but substantial profit in the genuineness of the article 
which he produces. Trade probably tries character 
more severely than any other pursuit in life. It 
puts to the hardest tests honesty, self-denial, justice, 
and truthfulness. "To do thorough work, to speak 
the plain truth, to do exactly as you would be done 
by, to put the interests of another on a level with 
your own, to take under no pretext a cent's worth 
more than you give in any trade, calls out all the 
strength of a person's character and gives a reason 
for placing honesty so high among the virtues." 

Perhaps it has not occurred to you how this lesson 

Honesty in can ^ e °^ P resent practical value to you 
school and in who are at school and have nothing to 
do with trade or business so called. 
But your business now is to get an education, and 
you should give to your parents something in exchange 
for the opportunity they are furnishing you to gain it. 
A fair equivalent to render is the putting forth of all 
your powers in industrious and honest school-work. 
It is not necessary to enumerate the many ways of 
practising petty cheating in school, but it is well to 



HONESTY 69 

remember that cheating is unworthy of a student who 
has any high aim or any sense of honor; and also well 
to remember that one who indulges in this dishonest 
practice in school is forming a habit that can be up- 
rooted only by great effort. The boy who cheats in 
games really spoils them. It is the playing according 
to rule, and the winning, if one can win, according to 
the laws of the game, that give all the fun there is in 
it. The boy that cheats does for the playground 
what the man that cheats does for society, and should 
be banished from the playground as should the man 
from respectable society. 

When Sir Walter Scott's publishers failed in 
business, ruin stared the distinguished illustrious 
author in the face. There was no want of examples of 
sympathy for him, and friends came ones y 

forward who offered to raise money enough for him 
to arrange with his creditors. "No!" said he, 
proudly: "This right hand shall work it all off. If 
we lose everything, we will, at least, keep our honor 
unblemished. " While his health was already becom- 
ing undermined by work he went on writing "like a 
tiger," as he expressed it, until no longer able to wield 
a pen. And though he paid the penalty of his 
supreme efforts with his life, he saved his honor and 
self-respect. 

When great presents were sent to Epaminondas, 
the Theban general used to observe: "If the thing 



70 LESSONS ON MORALS 

you desire is good I will do it without any bribe, even 
because it is good ; if it be not honest I will not do it 
for all the goods in the world. ,, 

Honesty was so prominent a trait of Abraham 
Lincoln's character that he gained the pseudonym of 
" Honest Abe." When he was twenty-two years of 
age he took charge of a country store in New Salem, 
Illinois. He never took advantage of the ignorance 
or necessities of customers, but represented goods 
just as they were, gave scripture measure and weight, 
and always hastened to correct mistakes. He was in 
great demand as umpire at all local games, both sides 
insisting upon his appointment on account of his fair- 
ness. His honesty won the confidence of all. When 
he became a lawyer he carried the same honesty to 
the bar. One day a stranger called to secure his 
services. A history of the case was given. 

"I cannot serve you/' said Lincoln, "for you are 
wrong and the other party is right." 

"That is none of your business if I hire and pay 
you for taking the case," retorted the man. 

"Not my business!" exclaimed Lincoln. "My 
business is never to defend wrong, if I am a lawyer." 

"Then you won't take the case for any amount of 
pay?" 

"Not for all you are worth," replied Lincoln. 

Sir William Siemens, a German scientist who lived 
in England, was gifted with rare mechanical skill and 



HONESTY 71 

great inventive genius. He accumulated a fortune 
and won a place in English society, but the most note- 
worthy thing about him was that his standard of work 
was higher than that of his employers. An illustra- 
tion of this trait was given in the laying of the direct 
United States cable from the steamer Faraday. The 
cable was above the tests specified in the contract, 
but in one place it was found to be below his own 
test. It took several days to cut out the faulty 
piece, and in the meantime stormy weather came on, 
so that it was necessary to cut the cable and buoy it, 
and the Faraday went into winter quarters on the 
American side, to renew and complete the work in 
the following spring. The cost of this scrupulousness 
was a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but Sir 
William expressed no regret at the expense. The 
fact that he made a large fortune while doing better 
work than he agreed to do seems to prove that ex- 
cessive honesty is no hindrance to success. 

At one time the Duke of Wellington bought a farm 
lying near his estate and therefore very valuable to 
him. When the purchase was concluded, his steward 
congratulated him on having got such a bargain; for, 
as he explained, the owner was in difficulties and had 
been forced t© part with the land. 

"What do you'mean by a bargain ?" asked the Duke. 

"It was valued at eleven hundred pounds," said 
the steward, "and we got it for eight hundred." 



72 LESSONS ON MORALS 

"In that case," said the Duke, "you will be kind 
enough to carry the extra three hundred pounds to the 
late owner and never to talk to me of cheap land again.' ' 

There is an old saying that "even exchange is no 
robbery." We may infer that uneven 
exchange is robbery. In fair dealing 
both parties are benefited. In unfair dealing one 
party profits by the other's loss; and knowingly to 
do so in a business transaction is to defraud, steal, 
and be a thief, the same as to steal a purse. Although 
common honesty is still in the ascendant, there are, 
unfortunately, many instances of dishonesty shown 
by the unscrupulous and by the intensely selfish in 
their haste to get rich. "There are tradesmen who 
adulterate, contractors who fail to carry out the 
details of their contracts, manufacturers who put 
shoddy upon the market, cast-iron tools instead of 
steel, and swindled fabrics in many shapes." 

The chief and most valuable reward of this virtue 
The reward is the respect a person has for himself. 
of honesty H e carries his head erect and no one v 
can put him down. He can look people straight in 
the eye. He has nothing to conceal and fears no in- 
vestigation. He also has the highest respect of the 
community in which he dwells. Honest work brings 
success. Even Mirabeau said: "If there were no 
honesty, it would be invented as a means of getting 
wealth." 



HONESTY 73 

"The humblest trade has in it elbow-room for all 
the virtues. The huckster can be true, and honest, 
and honorable. What more can a Rothschild be?" 

"All are not just because they do no wrong; 
But he who will not wrong me when he may, 
He is the truly just, I praise not those 
Who in their petty dealings pilfer not, 
But him whose conscience spurns at secret fraud 
When he might plunder and defy surprise, 
His be the praise who, looking down with scorn 
On the false judgment of the partial herd, 
Consults his own clear heart, and boldly dares 
To be, not to be thought, an honest man. 1 ' 



QUESTIONS 

Trace the relation of honesty to any other moral subject 
already considered. 

How can honesty be put into stone walls, or houses, or 
bridges ? 

Is it ethical to " drive a sharp bargain"? 

Is it right to accept large pay for little work? 

What is thoroughness? 

How can pupils in school practise the virtue of honesty? 

What is the highest reward of honesty ? 



Truthfulness 



m 



Truth and Knowledge 



Truthfulness a Habit 



Truthfulness Often Difficult 



Different Forms of Untruthfulness 



Why We Should be Truthful 



9m 



" Who ei er knew Truth fiut to the worse 
in a free and open encounter V 



75 



LESSON IX 

TRUTHFULNESS 

At first thought truthfulness seems so much like 
honesty as not to require a separate Truth and 
lesson, but if we consider a moment we knowledge 
shall see that, although they are, indeed, similar in 
nature, there are some points of difference. A person 
may be honest and, on account of his lack of knowl- 
edge, not truthful. Truth is the perception of thingo 
just as they are; therefore, to be truthful we must 
have knowledge. According to this view it may 
seem a difficult matter to be truthful at all times. 
From our own observation we can learn but a 
very small part of all that we need to know and we 
must depend mainly upon the report of facts from 
others, and upon the great body of knowledge already 
accepted as truth. But we should be cautious in 
our statements, and when in doubt make a thorough 
investigation of a subject before we speak decidedly. 
Truth is rarely on the surface of things. We should 
not judge altogether from appearances, and when it 
is necessary for us to make definite declarations we 
should dig below the crust of appearance to the solid 
rock of facts on which truth rests. There are no 

77 



78 LESSONS ON MORALS 

grades of truth. " Truth," says Ruskin, "is the 
one virtue of which there are no degrees. Truth 
and falsehood are widely separated, with no connect- 
ing link. Truth is reality." We trust the truthful 
person and consider his word as good as his bond. 

It may not commonly be believed that truthfulness, 
Truthfulness like the other virtues, is a habit. We are 

a habit apt to think if a person is untruthful in 

childhood and youth he will remain so forever. But 
the moral part of our mind, like the intellectual, 
grows in strength under proper training. Habits of 
honesty and truthfulness may spring up as one in- 
creases in knowledge and courage. This view of the 
matter does not lessen the danger of becoming 
untruthful, since the strongest habits are formed in 
early life, and unless young people constantly try to 
be truthful they form the opposite habit. It may be 
an encouragement to some who indulge in falsehood 
to know they can form a habit of truthfulness if they 
will. But it will cost constant and continued effort. 
Montaigne says: "After the tongue has once got a 
knack of lying it is almost impossible to reclaim it." 

We have said that truth is not always easy to 
Truthfulness discover; neither is it always easy to 
often difficult S peak it when we know it. There are 
some people who seem to discover truth long before 
others see it, and it requires no small amount of 
courage to stand up and proclaim it in the face of 



TRUTHFULNESS 79 

ignorance and opposing beliefs. In early times it 
cost many a person his life to do this. Even Newton, 
of whom Bishop Burnet said that he had the whitest 
soul he ever knew, was severely censured because he 
affirmed the truth of his sublime discovery of the 
law of gravitation. Discoveries and inventions are 
not met with persecution in our day, but many 
advanced social, political, and ethical ideas bring 
ridicule and reproach. When the truth is not 
favorably received we are sometimes led to conceal 
our opinions or to sacrifice them to our interests. 
Especially is this true when we have done wrong 
and think we can escape the penalty by telling a 
falsehood. It seems easy to deceive, but let us 
remember we are deceiving ourselves when we 
believe it easy to deceive others; and however hard 
it may be to confess wrong-doing it is much harder 
to cover it up by lying. We do not know — 

"What a tangled web we weave, 
When first we practise to deceive." 

We admire one who dares to speak the truth under 
any circumstances. Why should we not cultivate 
this habit of moral fearlessness? When Sidney, the 
English patriot, was told that he could save his life 
by denying his own handwriting, and thus tell a 
falsehood, he replied: "When I have been brought 
into a dilemma in which I must assert a lie or lose 



80 LESSONS ON MORALS 

my life, I have a clear indication of my duty, which 
is to prefer death to falsehood". 

Ruskin says : "The essence of lying is in deception, 
D -„ . - not in words. A lie may be told by 

of untruth- silence, by equivocation, by the accent 
fulness on a syllable, by a glance of the eye, 
attaching a peculiar significance to a sentence; and 
all these kinds of lies are worse and baser by many 
degrees than a lie plainly worded; so that no form 
of blinded conscience is as far sunk as that which 
comforts itself for having deceived because the 
deception was by gesture, or silence, instead of 
utterance." 

In our desire to be agreeable we may tell lies in 
compliments or we may do it to spare the feelings of 
a friend. On some the obligation of a promise or of 
keeping faith seems to rest but lightly. Such would 
hardly appreciate the nobility of character shown 
by the Duke of Wellington, who was offered one 
hundred thousand pounds if he would disclose a state 
secret. 

"It seems you are capable of keeping a secret," 
he said to the person who offered the bribe." 

"Yes." 

" Well, so am I," responded the Duke. 

Gossip and scandal come into the category of 
untruthfulness because they are usually made up of 
a minimum of facts, or of what are supposed to be 



TR UTHFULNESS 8 1 

facts, and a maximum of suspicions and surmises and 
exaggerations that are given out by busy-bodies as 
truth. To show how closely related are the vices, 
we have but to recall the fact that the gossips, the 
tell-tales, the scandalmongers are the idlers in a com- 
munity. 

It is not wrong to withhold truth when no good can 
come by revealing it, and it is better to know as little 
as possible of the failings of others, and keep that 
little to ourselves. There is great virtue in minding 
one's own business. Insincerity is another form of 
untruthfulness. There are people who are all things 
to all men, who say one thing and do another, like 
Bunyan's Mr, Facing-both-ways. 

Society, in a narrow sense, means a civilized com- 
munity with its common interests and „ T , 

J Why we 

aims. Without trust or confidence we should be 
could not live in social relations at all. truthful 
Confidence rests upon truth, and thus we may infer 
that all the advantages we reap from living in a civil- 
ized community, or from civilization itself, come through 
truthfulness. Another all-important reason for truth- 
fulness is the effect it or its opposite has upon our- 
selves. One who practises falsehood not only loses 
the respect and confidence of others, but he loses 
faith in himself. Truthfulness is the very foundation 
of all personal excellence. 

"Do not let us lie at all. Do not think of one 



82 LESSONS ON MORALS 

falsehood as harmless, and another as slight, and 
another as unintended. Cast them all aside; they 
may be light and accidental, but they are ugly soot 
from the smoke of the pit, for all that; and it is 
better that our hearts should be swept clean of them 
without over-care as to which is largest or blackest. 
Speaking truth is like writing fair, and comes only 
by practice." — John Ruskin. 

" Truth is beauty, and beauty truth." — Keats. 

" Who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open 
encounter? " — Milton. 

" Shame knew him not, he dreaded no disgrace, 
Truth, simple truth, was written in his face." 

— Crab be. 

" Vice has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them 
all." 

" They are slaves who will not choose 
Hatred, scoffing and abuse, 
Rather than in silence shrink 
From the truth they needs must think." 

— Ja7nes Russell Lowell. 

" A lie which is half a truth is ever the worst of lies." 

— Tennyson, 

QUESTIONS 
How does truthfulness differ from honesty? 
Give instances when it is not easy to speak the truth. 
How can the habit of truthfulness be formed? 



TRUTHFULNESS %$ 

What course is best after wrong doing? 

What effect has the telling of falsehoods upon the one who 
tells them? 

What would society be without truthfulness? 

Are there cases in which prevarication is allowable? 

Give the substance of Ruskin's advice in regard to lying. 

Give the quotation from James Russell Lowell. 

Read Yonge's Golden Deeds, Smiles's Character and 
Self-help, Matthews's Getting On in the World. 



Ti 



ime 



m 

"Time Flies" 

"Time is Precious" 

Procrastination 

Punctuality 

The Unpunctual 

A Right Use of Time Brings Leisure 
and Balance into Life 



3* 



" Time and tide wait for 
no man " 



85 



LESSON X 

TIME 

This is a trite old saying, the meaning of which 

is so apparent to us all that it seems 

ii i ■ ^ "Time flies" 

hardly worth repeating. But the more 

striking truth included in it is that life flies with 

time. The moments, weeks, years, vanish into the 

past, and once gone they can never be recalled. 

The manner in which we use our time so affects our 

character that the using of it wisely is a main element 

in the art of living well. Franklin says: "Dost thou 

love life? Then do not squander time, for that is 

the stuff life is made of.'' 

It is pointedly said that lost wealth may be re- 
placed by industry, lost knowledge by « Time is 
study, lost health by medicine and tern- precious" 
perance, but lost time is gone forever. Realizing 
this fact, we should learn to prize the present mo- 
ment. Young people, upon whom time "rests lightly," 
rarely value it as they ought, and by dreaming and 
frittering it away, form a habit of indolence which 
in after years holds them in an iron grasp. 

Because hours of work are diligently improved, it 
does not follow that hours of leisure should be spent 

87 



88 LESSONS ON MORALS 

in idleness. Change is rest, and a change to a differ- 
ent kind of work, or to some profitable subject of 
thought is more restful and much less injurious than 
listlessness and dawdling. When Watt sat in the 
chimney-corner watching the cover of the boiling 
tea-kettle he was apparently idle, but in reality he 
was designing the steam-engine. Newton was saun- 
tering through an orchard when a falling apple led 
to his discovery of the law of gravitation. 

Men of business are accustomed to say that "time 
is money"; it is much more. A few moments 
wasted daily on profitless reading, or in trivial occu- 
pation, if put to good use, would make an ignorant 
person wise, or a poor person comfortable and happy. 
When Drexillius was asked by a friend how he man- 
aged to accomplish so much, he replied: "The year 
has three hundred and sixty-five days, or eight thou- 
sand seven hundred and sixty hours. In so many 
hours great things can be done. The slow tortoise 
made a long journey by losing no time." Suppose 
we could regain the time we have squandered in need- 
less slumber, in day-dreaming, or in other trifling 
ways, what an opportunity it would furnish to turn 
our air-castles into reality! 

It is said that in the gold-working room in the 
United States mint, at Philadelphia, there is a peculiar 
floor made of a network of wooden bars to catch all 
the falling particles of the precious metal. When 



TIME 8 9 

the day's labor is over, the floor, which is in sections, 
is removed, and the golden dust is swept up to be 
melted and coined. Let us learn from this the 
nobler economy of time. Let us glean the golden 
dust so many sweep out into the waste of life. 

" Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to day." 
" One to-day is worth two to-morrows." 

When there is not a just appreciation of the value 
of time, or when a person is overcome Procrasti- 
by indolence or laziness, procrastination, nation 
the putting off the duty of the hour, is the result. 
The procrastinator, knowing that a certain piece of 
work must be done, thinks it will be just as well to 
do it some other time, and defers it until that time 
shall come. But it never comes. To-morrow finds 
him with as little energy as to-day, with the habit of 
procrastination strengthened by indulgence. Putting 
a duty off does not make it easier. The sooner we 
face and conquer a difficulty the less of a difficulty 
it becomes. The longer we put it off the harder it 
seems and the less willing are we to do it. If we 
delay one task we retard all that follow and bring 
about inextricable confusion. "When a regiment is 
under march," wrote Sir Walter Scott to a young 
man who had asked advice, "the rear is often 
thrown into confusion because the front does not move 
in time." 



9° LESSONS ON MORALS 

The danger of delay is shown by Plutarch's story of 
the Theban magistrate. While reclining amidst a 
merry party, despatches were handed to him that gave 
news of a plot against his life. " Business to-mor- 
row !" he cried, thrusting the packet out of sight. One 
of the company urged him to open it, but he refused. 
He did not live to open the packet; the plot was ripe 
for action, and on the following day he fell a victim 
to it, while the information sent to put him on his 
guard lay neglected and unread. 

The forming and strengthening of the habit of 

punctuality is one of the best results of 
Punctuality .... ^ T . . 

school training. "JNIever to be late at 

school" is an ambition that most pupils have, but 

few realize the great value punctuality will be to 

them in after life. Nothing inspires confidence in a 

business man sooner than this quality, and there is 

probably no habit more hurtful to his reputation 

than that of always being behindhand. Many have 

failed in life from this cause alone. One who 

does not keep an appointment promptly is not only 

discourteous, but he is a procrastinator and as 

reckless of another's time as of his own. Many 

instances of the value great men have put upon 

punctuality can be given. When Washington's 

secretary excused himself for being late and laid 

the blame to his watch, Washington quietly said: 

"Then you must get another watch, or I another 



TIME 91 

secretary." Louis XIV said: "Punctuality is the 

politeness of kings, the duty of gentlemen, the 

necessity of business men." Lord Nelson said : 

"I owe all my success in life to having been always 

a quarter of an hour before my time." 

The unpunctual person is a general disturber of 

the peace and serenity of others. Every 

one with whom he has to do is subjected 

™ 1-1 • unpunctual 

to inconvenience. The only thing he is 

systematic about is in being late. He disturbs his 

class by being late at school, he annoys others by 

being late at church or at an entertainment, he 

arrives at his appointment after time, gets to the 

railway station after the train has started, posts his 

letters after the mail has closed. The man habitually 

behind time is habitually behind success, and rails at 

fortune — when the fault lies in himself. 

While we urge upon the young the economizing of 

time, it is not to be understood that . . , A 

A right use of 

such saving of it as will rob one of time brings 

needed sleep and recreation is in- leisure and 

tended. Nor is it true that every mo- balance into 

. .„ . J life 

ment spent in seeming idleness is wasted. 

It is said that perfect relaxation of the muscles is 

necessary, at times, for rest. If we have the happy 

faculty of resting a fatigued brain in this way, it 

brings healthful ease in waking hours and refreshing 

sleep at night. It is an element in the economy of 



92 LESSONS ON MORALS 

time that we divide and apportion it so that one 
period will not clash with another. An orderly and 
proportionate division brings calmness, serenity, 
and balance into life, without which there is ever a 
hurrying from one thing to another, a toil-and-moil, 
and driven-to-death condition that brings anxiety and 
fatigue and defeats the ends of improvement of time. 
Those who make the best use of their time are the 
hard workers who have a proper sense of the adjust- 
ment of each step in life to every other, the result of 
which is a happy and harmonious whole. This ad- 
justment gives needed leisure for recreation, for 
self-improvement, and for rendering some useful serv- 
ice to the community in which we live. 

" Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time 
will repay you in after-life with a usury of profit be- 
yond your most sanguine dreams; and that the waste 
of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and 
in moral stature beyond your darkest reckonings." — 
William E. Gladstone. 

" He who loses an hour in the morning may keep 
on a dog's trot all day, and will not overtake it by 
evening." — Benjamin Franklin. 

" Procrastination is the the thief of time," 

" Time and tide wait for no man," 



TIME 93 

QUESTIONS 

What is perhaps the most valuable thing to remember about 
time? 

How should young people spend their leisure time? 

What is dawdling? Why is it harmful? 

What is procrastination? 

What is better than putting off an important duty? 

What are the advantages of punctuality in school? 

What unlovely trait of character does the-unpunctual person 
exhibit? 

Should there ever be perfect rest and freedom from work? 

Why is change rest? 

What is the best result of the right use of time? 

Repeat what the " Grand Old Man" has said on this subject. 



Order 



"A Place for Everything, and 
Everything in Its Place" 

Carelessness and Disorder 

"System a Good Servant, 
but a Bad Master" 

Practical Benefits of System 



11 Order is Heaven's 
first law 11 



95 



LESSON XI 

ORDER 

" Order is Heaven's first law." We learn this 
lesson from nature. The sun, the moon, the stars 
preserve their exact places in the universe and move 
in their paths without the slightest deviation. The 
most minute change from the exact course would hurl 
them from their places into space and produce chaos. 
"In human doings and human productions," says 
Blackie, "we see everywhere manifestations of order. 
Well-ordered stones make architecture, well-ordered 
words make good writing, well-ordered facts make 
science." In common life things have a place in 
space, and to arrange them in their right relations is 
one of the important concerns of conduct. 

The habit of orderliness is closely related to that 

of cleanliness, and, like it, is a sign of , 

. .,. ^ , . "A place for 

civilization. To carry out the maxim everything and 

with which this lesson begins, it is neces- everything in 
sary to arrange things in classes and to * 

keep all of a kind together. Otherwise confusion 
reigns. A well-kept house is a model of orderliness. 
There are certain places for certain things — cup- 
boards for dishes, drawers and closets for clothes, 

97 



9§ LESSONS ON MORALS 

shelves for books — and order demands that each class 
of things be kept in its own place. In a well-managed 
carpenter's shop each saw and hammer and file has its 
hook or nail or slot where it belongs, and where it is 
kept when not in use. The business man must have 
a desk with compartments and pigeon-holes for hold- 
ing different papers, so that he may be able to turn to 
them at a moment's notice. Having a place for every- 
thing and keeping everything in its place is called 
system. There is no work nor business that does 
not demand system. The smallest business exacts it 
and will go to ruin without it. In a complicated busi- 
ness it is indispensable. The orderly disposition of 
time and things is enforced in every good school, and 
years of constant practice by the pupils ought to 
establish this habit so firmly as to make it an element 
of success in later life. 

A striking illustration of orderliness is afforded by 
a seemingly trivial incident in Gladstone's life. At 
one time when he wanted a certain paper to prove a 
certain point, he directed his private secretary in the 
following manner: "If you will please go to the second 
desk in the small library, the third drawer on 
the right hand, in the last compartment in 
the back of the drawer you will find a bundle of 
papers tied with a black ribbon, dated 1845, an d 
labeled R. P. Bring me that." It was brought. 
Mr. Gladstone took out of the parcel the paper he 



ORDER 99 

wanted, a memorandum which he had not used in 
forty years! 

Sometimes in our love of present ease we yield to 
the temptatation to make the quickest Carelessness 
and handiest disposition of things, and and disorder 
thnow them carelessly down, here and there. When 
next we wish to use them it takes much more time 
and effort to find them than it would have taken to 
put them in the right place at first. Things we do 
not need seem to get in our way and things we do 
i<eed keep out of our way until our patience is ex- 
hausted. The professional or business man who has 
not due regard to order will never do anything well. 
It matters not how clever he is, nor how fertile in 
expedients, if he works without any systematic plan 
he will sooner or later come to grief. When things 
control us and domineer over us "they waste our 
time, try our patience, destroy our business, and 
scatter our fortune." 

A person who has no thought of system in his 
daily life is liable to use his time and ag . , 

strength to little advantage. But one servant, but a 
who gives the chief place to system is Dadmaster " 
likely to limit his labors to the routine demands of 
his system. One who bends to system rather than 
compels system to bend to him is not fitted for great 
enterprises, neither is he competent to meet the 
special and extra requirements of such exceptional 



ioo LESSONS ON MORALS 

days as are continually thrusting themselves into 

every busy life. The successful business man has 

system under his control so that he can use it or 

dispense with it according as he thinks it will help 

or hinder his success. When system is a mere dead 

and meaningless routine it is called "red tape,", or 

the "idolatry of system." 

The systematic division of time and labor in all ex- 

~ ,. . tensive manufactories secures large and 
Practical fe 

benefits of quick results. In a store in which each 
system employee knows his place and work 
more is done, and done better and at less cost, than 
would be possible otherwise. The home in which 
the work is conducted methodically is much more 
attractive than that in which disorder prevails. The 
pupil who conforms to the system of his school, ob- 
serving the precise time for study, with books and 
papers in order on his desk, is sure to have an honor- 
able standing. The orderly and systematic man can 
manage a thousand things with greater ease than one 
without order or system can manage a dozen. One 
writer says: "System is like packing things in a box; 
a good packer will get in half as much again as a poor 
one." Another says: "Marshal thy notions into a 
handsome method. One will carry twice more weight 
when packed up in bundles than when it lies out- 
wardly flapping and hanging about his shoulders." 
Noah Webster prepared his dictionary in thirty-six 



ORDER ioi 

years, and it is said that but for his methodical habits 
it would have taken ten or twenty years longer. 
There is much truth in the following statement : "A 
business reduced to system will almost run itself. 
Thus the heads of great concerns are able to accept 
public office, or spend a year in Europe, in absolute 
confidence that the business will be well conducted in 
their absence. They know each man has his part of 
the work for which he is responsible, each process has 
its precise method, each account its precise place." 

System is one of the keys to business success. It 
keeps things under our control, and they then become 
our faithful and efficient servants. 

"To everything there is a season, and a time for 
every purpose under heaven. " 

"Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the 
body, the peace of the city, the security of the state. 
As the beams to a house, as the bones to the micro- 
cosm of man, so is order to all things." — Soutkey. 

" He lost the sense that handles daily life, 
That keeps us all in order." 

— Tennyson. 

"Without order there is no living in public society, 
because the want thereof is the mother of confusion." 
— Hooker. 



102 LESSONS ON MORALS 



QUESTIONS 



Why is it a duty to keep things in their places? 
Describe a systematically arranged room or desk. 
Does carelessness or disorder rank as a vice? Why? 
What is system? When is it a virtue? When is it a vice? 
Mention some penalty that has followed carelessness, in your 
own experience. 

Mention some benefits of orderliness. 
Repeat the quotation from Southey. 



Courage 

Stoicism 

Patience 

Heroism 

"The Tenderest are the Bravest, 
the Loving are the Daring" 

Cowardice 

Recklessness 

Bullying 

The Reward of Courage is Honor 

£9 



"Not all the names of heroes are 
to be found in history " 



103 



LESSON XII 

COURAGE 

The ancient Greeks were divided into different 

sects, or schools of philosophy, that 

i r ^ i i i Stoicism 

became very famous. One school, the 

Epicurean, taught that the true principle of living 
was to get all possible happiness out of life. Another, 
the Stoics, maintained that it should not be the great 
object of man to live happily, or even to live at all. 
Its belief was that we should always be masters of 
ourselves, and allow nothing to disturb our self- 
command and repose of mind. From " Stoic" is 
derived our word " stoicism," which means, in general, 
a habit of mind that takes all things calmly, that is, 
cool in peril, and peaceful in the midst of pain and 
misfortune. There is a higher philosophy than that 
of stoicism, but stoicism is not to be despised. It 
forms the best basis upon which the higher virtues 
can rest. Fortitude, patience, and courage make 
the strong character, while love, sympathy, and 
helpfulness make it beautiful. 

In early times when men were open to attack 

by wild beasts and marauding armies 

... . Moral courage 

physical courage was necessary in 

facing and fighting those enemies. But in the 

105 



106 LESSONS ON MORALS 

peaceful security of a civilized community the need 
of such courage is rare. It is moral courage that is 
needed: courage to fight the battle of life, with its 
inevitable ills; courage to pursue our work steadily 
and persistently, waiting patiently for success or 
bearing misfortune with serenity; courage to do right 
when others around us are doing wrong; courage to 
follow the right course, whether it brings blame 
or approval, pain or pleasure, profit or loss. "The 
power to stand alone with truth or right against the 
world is the test of moral courage." 

It was this kind of courage that Lincoln showed 
when, against the advice of Congress and his 
friends, he decided to have a call made for five 
hundred thousand recruits. "It will endanger your 
reelection," said his advisers. Stretching his tall 
form to its full length, with the fire of indignation 
flashing in his eyes, as if he had been asked to do a 
dishonorable act, he replied: "It is not necessary 
for me to be reelected, but it is necessary for the 
soldiers at the front to be reinforced by five hundred 
thousand men, and I shall call for them; and if I 
go down under the act, I will go down, like the 
Cumberland, with my colors flying." 

It is related of Gladstone when at Oxford that one 
day in the common dining room some one proposed a 
toast of which he disapproved. Instantly he turned 
his glass upside down. Simple as the act may seem, 






COURAGE 107 

it would be easier for most men to face a blazing 
cannon. A distinguished naval officer said of Mr. 
Gladstone : " There is no man living who would have 
made so splendid an admiral of the old type as Mr. 
Gladstone, if he had only been in the navy. Once 
let him be convinced of the righteousness of his 
cause, and he would fight against any odds, nail his 
colors to the mast, and blow up the magazine rather 
than surrender." 

Almost every step of progress in the annals of our 
.race has been made in the face of opposition and 
difficulty. There is scarcely a truth that has not had 
to fight its way to recognition. Galileo was perse- 
cuted on account of his views concerning the motion 
of the earth ; Roger Bacon was imprisoned because 
of his investigations in chemistry. When Dr. Harvey 
published his theory of the circulation of the blood, 
his practice fell off, and the medical profession stig- 
matized him as a fool. Could we trace the history 
of any great discovery, or invention, or reform, or 
work of broad human interest, we should find that it 
had been accomplished, at least in early times, by 
men endowed with energy, devotion, and courage, 
who, however much they may have been opposed or 
reviled by their contemporaries, now rank among 
those whom we most delight to honor. 

" Many loved Truth, and lavished life's best oil 
Amidst the dust of books to find her, 



108 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Content at List, (or guerdon of their toil, 

With the cast mantle she had left behind her. 

"Many in sad faith sought for her, 
Many with crossed hands sighed for her; 
But these, our brothers, fought for her, 
At life's dear peril wrought for her, 
So loved her that they died for her, 
Tasting the raptured fleetness 
Of her divine completeness." 

— James Russell Lowell. 

There is no higher form of courage than patience 
— patience in great things and in small, 
patience in enduring pain and bodily 
ills, patience in withholding the angry retort, patience 
with stupidity, patience in doing the drudgery of 
work with discouragements and disappointments all 
along the way, patience in self-denial. It is said that 
of all the lessons taught in this school of the world 
the hardest to learn is to wait patiently. Young 
people are impatient of the time spent in getting an 
education. Ten or fifteen years seem interminable. 
Men are in a hurry to become rich; to wait forty 
years for a fortune has a discouraging outlook to 
many. But it must be remembered that the road 
to great excellence in any pursuit is a long and rough 
one, and no one can travel it who does not wait and 
work with indomitable patience c Nearly all of the 
most successful men in America have fought their 



COURAGE 109 

way to wealth or distinction against formidable 
obstacles. Franklin, Patrick Henry, Clay, Webster, 
Jackson, Douglas, Lincoln, Grant were all sons of 
poor parents, and but for their courageous persistency 
would never have worked their way from the foot of 
the ladder to the very top. 

History and biography abound in examples of sig- 
nal patience shown by great men under trying cir- 
cumstances. The gentle words of Sir Isaac Newton 
to his dog Diamond, when it upset a lighted taper on 
his desk and destroyed the laborious calculations of 
years, are familiar to all. When Carlyle had finished 
the first volume of The French Revolution he lent 
the manuscript to a friend for perusal, and it having 
been left on the parlor floor the servant used it in 
lighting the kitchen fire. The author experienced 
positive anguish when he learned of the mishap, but 
without wasting any time in complaints set resolutely 
to work and at last triumphantly reproduced the book. 
When Audubon had toiled for many years to get 
accurate representations of American birds he found 
that two Norwegian rats had in a night destroyed 
two hundred of his drawings containing the forms of 
a thousand birds. So intense was his suffering that 
he writes: "I slept not,- and my days passed like 
days of oblivion until, finally, I took my gun, my 
note-book, and my pencil and went forward to the 
woods as gayly as if nothing had happened/' 



no LESSONS ON MORALS 

It took three years to refill his portfolio. 

Ninety per cent, of what is called genius is cour- 
age in the form of patience. If we take a look at the 
biographies of great men we find almost without ex- 
ception that the men of brilliant achievements, 
whether poets, orators, statesmen, historians, generals, 
or teachers, have toiled more laboriously and persist- 
ently than smiths or carpenters, and that the reason 
they have surpassed other men is simply because they 
have taken more time and pains than other men. 

"A New Time-Table — « Wait!' 

"When you are puzzled and perplexed, 

Leave off the worrying debate, 

And think of other things awhile; 

You'll see it clearer if you wait. 

"When temper rises, hot and quick, 

And you are vexed at friend or mate; 
Watch your time-table! stop just there! 
Save the collision! Simply 'wait!' 

"Each thing in nature keeps this law, 
The smallest plant abides its date — 
And summer's heat, and winter's flaw, 
And storm, and calm their season 'wait.' 

"This is the law that rules our lot, 

And holds the whole of human fate; 
He conquers who has force to strive, 
And equal patience has — to 'wait.'" 

— Helen Hunt Jackson. 



COURAGE in 

Those who are brave in a good cause are called 

heroes. When we read the history of 

i i Heroism 

the world we see how much we owe to 

those heroes of the past — to men who gave life and 

fortune for truth, for justice, for philanthropy, for 

patriotism, that the generations might have full 

liberties, and fair laws, civilization, culture and 

Christianity. Indeed, we owe them all that makes 

life of real worth; not the smallest service ever 

rendered to mankind that has not had its heroes. 

But it would be a great mistake to think that the 
names of all the heroes are found in history. Many 
heroic lives have been humble and unknown. After 
a victory the leaders are honored, but they could 
not have won the battle had it not been for the 
bravery of their soldiers, whose names are never 
heard outside of their own circles, whose deeds are 
never chronicled. Railway engineers have died with 
their hand on the throttle that others might live; 
sea-captains have stood at their posts on blazing 
decks until every soul in their care had left the 
ship that often carried them into the deep; physi- 
cians and nurses have not shrunk from pestilence in 
order to save life. Father Damien so pitied the lepers, 
who were deprived of the comforts of the world and 
the consolations of religion, that he lived with them 
and died with them in seeking to do them good. 

Many have been heroes in the most common walks 



1 1 2 LESSONS ON MORALS 

of life. Boys and girls have sacrificed every enjoy- 
ment in order to obtain an education, or contrariwise, 
have given up the chance of an education in order to 
assist or support their parents or brothers and sisters. 
It is heroic to give up one's pleasure for the sick at 
home, or to endure any real self-sacrifice. Heroism 
needs no romantic setting to be worthy of the name. 
Gentleness and tenderness have been found to 

,,_ , characterize those who have done the 

" The tenderest 

are the bravest, most courageous deeds. General Grant 
the loving are h ac j no f ear f «i ron hail and leaden 

rain, " but when Lee surrendered and the 
Union men began to celebrate the occurrence by 
firing cannon, Grant directed the firing to cease, say- 
ing: "It will wound the feelings of our prisoners, who 
have become our countrymen again." Abraham 
Lincoln, who was a giant in physical strength and 
moral courage, had a most tender heart. When 
tidings of the heavy losses in the Battle of the Wilder- 
ness reached him, he exclaimed, with deep emotion: 
"My God! my God! twenty thousand poor souls sent 
to their account in one day! I cannot bear it! I can- 
not bear it!" At another time he said to Secretary 
Seward: "This dreadful news from the boys has ban- 
ished sleep and appetite. Not a moment's sleep last 
night nor a crumb of food this morning. I shall 
nevermore be glad." 

True courage is magnanimous. When General 



COURAGE 113 

Grant had been for several months in front of Peters- 
burg, apparently accomplishing nothing, while Gen- 
eral Sherman had captured Atlanta and made his 
grand march to the sea, there was a demand that 
Sherman should be promoted to Grant's position. 
Hearing of it, Sherman wrote to Grant: "I have 
written to John Sherman to stop it. I would rather 
have you in command than any one else. I should 
emphatically decline any commission calculated to 
bring us into rivalry." General Grant replied: "No 
one would be more pleased with your advancement 
than I; and if you should be placed in my position, 
and I put subordinate, it would not change our rela- 
tions in the least. I would make the same exertions 
to support you that you have done to support me, and 
I would do all in my power to make our cause win." 

Lincoln called to his cabinet a man who had 
publicly insulted him by use of the most opprobrious 
epithet the language offers, and appointed to the chief- 
justiceship another who had spoken of him with 
habitual contempt. 

One writer says that cowardice consists in exag- 
gerating danger. He adds: "When we 
, . 1 c . , . -,. . . ,. c Cowardice 

think of it, there is no condition in life 

in which we are absolutely safe. A mad dog might 
run into the room at this very minute, and bite us all. 
The house might take fire. When we go into the 
street a runaway horse might knock us down, or 



114 LESSONS ON MORALS 

we might meet a person with the small-pox." A 
cowardly person constantly sees these things as likely 
to happen. He not only thinks the evil will come, 
but that he can not bear it if it does. The courageous 
man takes due precaution against danger and lives 
as in absolute safety, with the determination to bear 
with fortitude whatever comes. In war the coward 
is the one who turns his back in battle. 

One kind of cowardice is the opposite of moral 
courage. It is cowardly to be an " eye-servant," or 
to do differently when people are looking, from what 
we would do when alone. It is cowardly to say 
what we think people will like to hear rather than 
what we know to be true. He is a coward who tries 
to think as everybody else thinks until he has no 
mind of his own left, who apes other people for fear 
of being considered odd. One who is afraid to stand 
up and be himself, who cringes or fawns or toadies 
to others, is a coward as much as the soldier who 
turns his back in battle. 

There is a kind of cowardice that has somewhat 

the appearance of courage. Of course 
Recklessness 

it is brave to face danger when there 

is good reason for doing so — to rush into a burning 

building when there is a life to be saved, or to plunge 

into the stream to rescue the drowning, or to face 

the cannon's mouth in time of battle; but to do these 

things needlessly or because we think it will redound 



COURAGE 115 

to our credit is not courage, but recklessness or 

foolhardiness. It is not courage that prompts a man 

to shoot a boat over the falls of Niagara or walk a 

tight-rope above their foaming waters for a wager. 

Doing things because some one dares us is just the 

opposite of courage. 

There is a certain quality that sometimes passes 

for heroism that has no relation to it 

, , , T . Bullying 

and deserves only contempt. It is seen 

in those who show their strength exclusively at the 
expense of the weak. The bully is no hero. He is 
often found on the playground as well as in other 
places, and is generally shown to be a coward when 
a display of courage is called for. There are robbers 
and pirates and banditti and burglars who are some- 
times the admiration of boys who have seen very 
little of real life and whose foolish idea of a hero is 
some sort of a robber-king. 

In time of danger when a person risks his life to 
save others, when he dares to face shot T he reward of 
and shell for his country, when he bravely courage is 
defends the weak and the oppressed, all 
the world applauds and admires. When we see one 
who has himself under command, who is a slave to no 
one, who dares to do right, whose tongue no argu- 
ment nor bribery can make speak falsely, we honor 
him above all others. "No man ev6v handed down 
to history an undying fame who did not have the 



n6 LESSONS ON MORALS 

courage to speak and act his real thought, and act 
in defiance of the revilings and persecutions of his 
fellows." 

"He has not learned the lesson of life who does 
not every day surmount a fear." — Emerson. 

" This above all; to thine own self be true; 
And it must follow, as the night the day, 
Thou canst not then be false to any man." 

— Harnlet, i, 3. 

" Cowards are cruel; but the brave 
Love mercy, and delight to save." 

" A great deal of talent is lost in the world for the 
want of a little courage. Every day sends to their 
graves a number of obscure men who have only 
remained in obscurity because their timidity has pre- 
vented them from making a first effort; and who, 
could they have been induced to begin, would, in all 
probability, have gone great lengths in the career of 
fame. The fact is that, to do anything in this world 
worth doing, we must not stand shivering and think- 
ing of the cold and danger, but jump in and scramble 
through as well as we can." — Sydney Smith. 

"The wrecking of the Maine > happening at night, 
was so sudden and the convulsion was over in so brief 
a time that a chance for a display of heroism seems 
next to impossible ; and yet, in the terror of that 



COURAGE 117 

awful scene every surviving man immediately recov- 
ered himself and stood to his discipline. Not one 
comrade was forsaken by another. The last seen of 
the lost lieutenant was at the turret under his charge, 
weak and staggering with his wounds. The marine 
on duty, true to his habit of service, rushed through 
a dark passage flooded with water, and reported that 
the ship had been blown up and was sinking. It did 
not occur to him to save himself until his duty was 
done. Officers and men, in danger of being swamped 
by the death struggle of the ship, rowed around her, 
trying to save life, and careless of their own. The 
captain was the last to leave the ship. No man 
sought his own safety at the sacrifice of another, nor 
sought it first." — Youths Companion. 

QUESTIONS 

Relate something more of the Stoics that you have learned 
in your reading. 

Give an illustration of physical courage that may fcive come 
to your notice. 

Give an illustration of moral courage. 

Why does Truth generally have to fight its way. 

What is heroism? 

Mention some hero of history. 
*Give your idea of a coward. 

How does recklessness differ from courage? 

From the quotation from Emerson, should you judge the 
virtue of courage to be a matter of habit? 

Repeat the quotation from Shakespeare. 



Love 

m 

Sympathy akin to Love 

Indifference 

Selfishness 

Insincerity 

The Counterfeit of Love is 
Sentimentalism 

The Remedy for Selfishness 



u Love is the common air of 
heaven and earth " 



II 9 



LESSON XIII 

LOVE 

In studying the subject of courage we learned that 
a certain amount of stoicism forms the best basis 
upon which the higher virtues can rest. When 
stoicism is permeated by love it becomes the supreme 
quality -of character. The world is so made up 
that it probably never happens that a person lives 
without love. There is the love of parents, of brothers 
and sisters, of relatives and companions. It is also 
rare to find one who does not love some person 
besides himself. True love is not a weak, sentimental 
feeling, but the strongest of which we are capable. 
It is taking others into our hearts and lives, and calls 
for hard service and self-sacrifice when the needs of 
others require it. 

Henry Drummond has called love " the greatest 
thing in the world." His analysis will perhaps give us 
a broader view of it than we have ever had before. 
He says: "The spectrum of love has nine ingre- 
dients — 

"Patience: 'Love suffereth long J 

"Kindness: 'And is kind.' 

"Generosity: 'Love envieth not.' 

121 



122 LESSONS ON MORALS 

" Humility : ' Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed 
up.' 

" Courtesy: 'Doth not behave itself unseemly/ 

" Unselfishness: 'Seeketh not her own.' 

"Good temper: Is not easily provoked.' 

"Guilelessness: 'Thinketh no evil/ 

" Sincerity: Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth 
in the truth.' " 

Dr. Munger says: "Look for a moment at 
love — human sympathy. It needs no words to 
show that this is the crown of character. It is not 
a sentiment to be indulged; it is a law to be 
obeyed. It is not a soft and beautiful thing 
born in tender hearts, but is the rock that up- 
holds character; it is the hooks of steel that bind it 
together. It is the common air of heaven and earth, 
— the only breath that will sustain the human soul/' 

Love and sympathy are often regarded as stronger 
Sympathy akin or weaker expressions of the same thing; 
to love this is in accordance with Prof. Drum- 
mond's analysis. But if we take love in its general 
acceptation, there may be sympathy without love, and 
seemingly love without sympathy. We may have 
sympathy for one who is in trouble, even if a stranger. 
A child may, by disobedience or evil habits, cause 
great grief to his parents whom he really loves. 
Sympathy as a form of love is seen in the exemplifica- 
tion of the golden rule : " Do unto others as you 



LOVE 123 

would that they should do unto you." This putting 
one's self in the place of another is an illustration of the 
"brotherhood of man," that broad and general love 
that extends to the whole human race. Love and 
sympathy express themselves in various ways. They 
give food to the hungry, clothes to the naked, for- 
giveness to the penitent. Indeed, all the higher 
social virtues that bring happiness and sweetness into 
life are but different forms of these virtues. 

The Stoics taught that it was a virtue to be indif- 
ferent to the love and esteem of others. 

. Indifference 

It is true that most or our annoyances 

and trials come through our personal relations, and 

sometimes it seems that if we could get away from 

people entirely we should be much happier. When 

we are slighted, or feel that we are not appreciated, 

we are apt to shrug our shoulders and say: "I don't 

care. Nobody cares for me and I care for nobody." 

Once in a while a person carries this feeling so far as 

to withdraw himself from society and live the life of a 

hermit. Perhaps some of the ills of life are avoided 

in this way; but it is in running away and hiding 

from them, instead of overcoming them bravely and 

resolutely. Trying to live as if the rest of the world 

had no interest for us is trying to deprive ourselves 

of all that is best in life. Although our relations 

with others bring pain as well as pleasure, we must 

bear the pain with courage and strive to make our 



124 LESSONS ON MORALS 

lives so beautiful that the pleasure will outbalance it. 

We cannot, try as we may, live satisfactorily without 

companionship. We need human love and sympathy 

to make us happy, and if we receive we should give 

in equal measure. Love begets love. A little girl 

was once asked: "Why does everybody love you 

so much?" She answered: "I think it is because I 

love everybody so much." This simple story shows 

that our happiness depends upon mutual affection, 

and that indifference must bring a loveless and 

unenjoyable life. 

The world in which we live may be compared to a 

great army, of which the family, the 
Selfishness * t , J ' , . . 1 _ J 

school — all or our civic and domestic 

relations — are the divisions wherein each of us has 

a certain place and certain duties to perform in 

order to maintain that place. Inferring from what 

we have learned about industry and economy and the 

improvement of time, we know it to be right for us 

to look after our own interests with the greatest care 

and energy. Unless we do so we cannot fill the 

position assigned us in this great army to which we 

belong. But while we seek our own interests we are 

not to act as if the interests of others were not of as 

much importance to them as ours are to us. There 

is danger in becoming so bound up in our own affairs 

as to forget that other people also have affairs and 

rights. That would be selfishness and the very op- 



LOVE 125 

posite of love. As love is ranked the greatest of the 

virtues around which so many other virtues cluster, so 

selfishness may be called the center and source of the 

vices. It is selfishness that robs, cheats and lies; 

selfishness that leads to intemperance; selfishness 

that speaks the cruel word; selfishness that refuses 

to work. Selfishness is ungenerous, discourteous, 

unkind, and insincere. If we turn back to 

Prof. Drummond's analysis of love we shall see that 

selfishness includes the opposite of every virtue he 

has mentioned. 

Sometimes selfishness has the appearance of love. 

It does the same things, but the motives 

,. rr . .- Insincerity 

are different. If it bestows gifts it is 

with the expectation of a return. If it does any 
kind act it has its eye on the reward. Like falsehood, 
it says one thing and does another. There is no 
person who loves less and who eventually is loved 
less than he who is insincere. 

There are some who are never so happy as when 
pouring forth a gush of feeling. They The counter- 
are always on hand wherever there is feit of love is 
... sentimentalism 

mourning or rejoicing, and seem to over- 
flow with sympathy. They literally "rejoice with those 
who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." But 
they are only indulging in one form of selfishness. 
They do not really care for the joys and sorrows of 
others, but they like the thrill of excitement it brings 



126 LESSONS ON MORALS 

to witness joy or grief. They cannot be relied on for 
any duty that calls for self-sacrifice, for this gush of 
sentimental feeling gives out as soon as serious ser- 
vice is required. Young people should guard against 
sentimentalism in themselves, as it undermines true 
character; and while it should not lead them to be 
over-suspicious of others, they should be on their 
guard to detect the sham, whether in the form of 
protestations of affection, in compliments, or in sym- 
pathy for the suffering. 

The only way to grow unselfish is to become inter- 
The remedy ested in others, recognize their rights, 
for selfishness an( j s h are their joys and sorrows, hopes 
and fears. Drummond says: "The supreme work to 
which we need to address ourselves in this world is to 
love. Is not life full of opportunities for learning to 
love? Every one every day has a thousand of them. 
The world is not a play-ground, but a school-room. 
Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one 
eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. 
What makes a man a good cricketer? Practice. 
What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a 
good musician? Practice. If a man does not exer- 
cise his arm he develops no biceps muscle; and if a 
man does not exercise his soul he acquires no muscle 
in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral 
fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a 
thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, 



LOVE 127 

vigorous expression of the whole character. And the 
constituents of this great character are only to be 
built up by ceaseless practice. ,, 

" Love took up the harp of life, smote on all its strings with 

might, 

Touched the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music 

out of sight." 

— Tennyson. 

"As the pure water rises in its source, the spring, 
so unselfishness rises from the true heart, because it 
cannot help it." 

QUESTIONS 

Mention some duties or virtues that arise from our associa- 
tion with others. 

How are love and sympathy alike? How unlike? 

Why is indifference wrong? 

Show how selfishness is the opposite of love. 

Why is one who robs or cheats selfish? 

Of what is love the centre? 

Describe a sentimental character that you have known. 

What is the remedy for selfishness? 



Benevolence 



Usefulness 

Real Charity is to Help the Poor 
to Help Themselves 

True Charity an Active Principle, but 
not Measured ry the Amount Given 

"Let not Your Right Hand Know What 
Your Left Hand Doeth" 



9m 



"True charity never opens the heart without at the 
same time opening the 7nind" 



129 



LESSON XIV 

BENEVOLENCE 

We learned in our last lesson that love and sym- 
pathy bind us to others and others to our- TT , , 

J , Usefulness 

selves. This is one way by which we 
become members of the great body we call society. 
Growing out of our relations to society is another re- 
lation — that of usefulness. This means that if one 
fills his place in society properly he is of use to him- 
self and to the community of which he is a member. 
We are all familiar with the larger details of house- 
building. We know that the services of the architect, 
the contractor, the carpenter, the mason, the glazier, 
the plumber, the painter, are necessary to bring the 
building to completion. So in the world of people, 
the merchant, the mechanic, the doctor, the lawyer — 
all who work — are each filling a place in the social 
body. They are doing this chiefly to earn a living, 
but one fills his place in life poorly who thinks only of 
how much money he can make by his labor without 
regard to the help he can be to his fellow-man. One 
who has love and sympathy in his heart can find many 
other opportunities for helpfulness besides those that 
grow out of the various callings of life. Study is the 

131 



132 LESSONS ON MORALS 

business of boys and girls who are getting ready to 
take their part in the work of the world — but during 
this preparation they can find plenty of chances to be 
of aid in their homes, among their companions, or to 
those whom they chance to meet. We should all be 
ashamed merely to be taken care of in this world, 
without doing any good to others. One class of peo- 
ple especially needing our help is the poor. The form 
which love and sympathy take when their object is 
the* poor is called benevolence or charity. 

When poverty is the result of sickness, accident or 

inability to find work, it calls for our 
Real charity J 

is to help the sympathy and substantial aid. There 

poor to help are m any worthy poor in this world who 

themselves 

should be supplied with means of get- 
ting over hard places, or should be permanently as- 
sisted, as the case may be. It is the unworthy poor, 
the "professional" poor, as they are sometimes called, 
who constitute the larger class, and although our 
sympathy for them does not often arise spontaneously, 
they doubtless need it as much as the other class. 
Different classes of the poor should be treated differ- 
ently, but there are two general principles by which 
we should always be governed in charitable giving. 
Our motive should spring from the sympathy we feel 
for those in need. We should also know the circum- 
stances of the one to whom we give; otherwise what 
we intend to be charity may not be charity at all. 



BENEVOLENCE 133 

Bishop Potter says: "It is better for him and better 
for us to give a beggar a kick than to give him half a 
dollar." This sounds heartless, but he means that, as 
the beggar is sure to be a stranger to us, we do not 
know what use he will make of the half dollar; 
neither do we know but that by our gift we shall 
encourage him in beggary and send him so much 
farther on in his downward career. 

Poverty is not of itself sufficient to constitute a 
claim to relief. The truest philanthropist is he who 
tries to prevent misery, dependence, and destitution 
by helping the poor to help themselves. v If, after 
proper investigation, it is found that money is the 
thing needed, it should not, of course, be withheld. It 
is related of Nicholas Hill that when traveling in 
Germany he was accosted by a beggar who asked for 
a penny. "What dost say if I give thee ten pounds?" 
"Ten pounds! why, that would make a man of me." 
He gave the money and entered in his note-book: 
"To making a man, ;£io." However, in the majority 
of cases, assistance in getting work, words of encour- 
agement and sympathy, advice or reproof, are more 
efficient means of charity than money. Indiscrim- 
inate almsgiving often destroys all energy and self- 
reliance in the poor, and encourages them in improvi- 
dence, idleness and fraud. There are many forms of 
benevolence that create the very evils they are 
intended to cure. 



134 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Sentimental benevolence experiences the delight of 
True charity §' v ^ n S m imagination but not in reality. 
an active prin- It is well to remember that benevolent 
n^asuredbv sent iment without some practical out- 
the amount come is worth but little. A Quaker 
glven once saw a crowd gathered around an 

unfortunate man who had met with an accident in the 
street, and hearing many expressions of pity from the 
bystanders, but seeing no substantial benefit accruing 
to the object of their compassion, quietly said: 
"Well, friends, I am sorry for the man half a crown. 
How sorry are you?" The question of how much to 
give often arises. If possible we should give as much 
as the destitute one needs — no more, no less. 
When that is impossible, if we give ungrudgingly 
what we can afford, whether a mite or a thousand 
dollars, we may feel the satisfaction of having done 
our duty. George Peabody gave half a million to 
ameliorate the condition of the poor in London — a 
noble deed, but worthy of no greater praise than the 
gift of the poor widow who "of her penury cast in all 
the living that she had." 

''•That is no true alms which the hand can hold; 
He gives only worthless gold 
Who gives from a sense of duty; 
But he who gives but a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 
That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 



BENEVOLENCE 135 

Which runs through all, and doth all unite — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms." 

— Lowell. 

Lord Lytton says: " Charity is a feeling dear to 
the pride of the human heart," but this 
is an inconsistent definition, since true ri ht ha ^ d 
charity "vaunteth not itself." If pride know what 
or ostentation is the stimulus, charity is y ° U ^ eth» 
not the proper term to be used. The 
original meaning of the word is universal love, and 
this is the true motive power of active benevolence. 
The poet takes a better view : 

" Man is dear to man; the poorest poor 
Long for some moments in a weary life 
When they can know and feel that they have been 
Themselves the fathers and the dealers out 
Of some small blessings, have been kind to such 
As needed kindness, for the single cause 
That we have all of us one human heart." 

When we are actuated by the spirit described by 
the poet there will be nothing of pride or ostentation 
in our giving. We shall give, not from selfish enjoy- 
ment, nor because others do it, nor to outdo others, 
nor for the sake of display, but because a large and 
generous love prompts us, and we shall often give out 
of our own need and in secret. The following 
incident bears upon this point : 

A young German shoemaker and his friend in 



136 LESSONS ON MORALS 

London visited the famous whispering gallery in St. 
Paul's Cathedral. While there he confided to his 
companion that his business was in such a precarious 
condition he would be obliged to put off his intended 
marriage. When he went to buy leather the next 
day, the merchant astonished him by offering him 
credit. Surprising orders from the wealthiest families 
poured in and prosperity followed. When he paid 
his last bill the dealer told him the man to whom he 
owed the credit that had put him on his feet was 
William E. Gladstone. The great man happened to 
be in the whispering gallery at this opportune moment 
and overheard the tale of the workman's poverty. 
Truly he had heeded the advice: "Do good by 
stealth." 

There is a refinement of charity that should lead 
us to do good deeds quietly and without boasting. 
The poor often feel a loss of self-respect when, even 
if through no fault of their own, they become objects of 
charity, and we should hesitate to increase this feel- 
ing by our manner of giving. We should dispense 
those charities that "soothe and heal and bless." 

" The charities that soothe and heal and bless 
Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers." 

— Wordsworth. 

"True charity never opens the heart without at the 
same time opening the mind." 



BENEVOLENCE 137 

" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least 
of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 

" In faith and hope the world will disagree, 
But all mankind's concern is charity." 

— Pope. 



QUESTIONS 

Give in your own words your idea of usefulness. 

When are love and sympathy called benevolence? 

Why is it not a benevolent act to give money to a beggar? 

Can you think of any occasion when it would be right to 
give to the unknown poor? 

Repeat the lines of the poet and state what idea you get 
from them. 

It is a common custom in schools to contribute something to 
the poor on Thanksgiving day. From your knowledge of the 
manner in which this is done, state what you think of the 
custom. 

Read The Visio?i of Sir Launfal and state what the poet's 
idea of charity is. 

Read Goldsmith's Village Preacher and find in it some 
application of this lesson. 



Forgiveness 



fwv 

Justice in Punishment 

Defence a Kind of Justice 

Love Forgives and Punishes 

"When the Injury Begins on His Part, 
the Kindness Should Begin on Ours" 

To Err is Human, to Forgive is Divine 



"And mild forgiveness intercede 
To stop the coining blow' 1 '' 



J 39 



LESSON XV 

FORGIVENESS 

Besides the unworthy poor, there is another class 
toward whom we do not readily extend our sympathy, 
and who certainly seem less deserving of it, but to whom 
our duty is no less exacting than our duty to the 
poor. We refer to wrongdoers ; persons who wilfully 
rob, injure, slander, and .ill treat generally those who 
are weaker or less protected than themselves. One 
of the hardest obligations we have to perform is to 
feel an interest in this class of people and to manifest 
that love which "suffereth long and is kind" so dis- 
creetly and wisely as to rescue them from the error of 
their ways. In dealing with them we find it much 
easier to exercise a spirit of indignation and resent- 
ment than a spirit of love, so that we must have 
some definite and consistent ideas of the treatment 
they deserve, or we shall be in danger, in our wrath 
against them, of doing a wrong to right a wrong, and 
thus reducing ourselves to their level. 

The old Romans represented the goddess of 
justice by the statue of a woman, blind- Justice in 
folded, holding a pair of scales in one P™ishment 
hand and a sword in the other. The bandage 

141 



142 LESSONS ON MORALS 

indicated that the just man is blind to every con- 
sideration that would lead him to favor one person 
at the expense of another. The scales showed that 
the just man weighs out his part to each, that he may 
be fair to all. Justice means giving every person his 
due — that is, what others owe him because he is a 
human being in society. Speaking generally, he 
himself owes the same things to other people as they 
owe to him. What he calls his rights are the duties 
of others to him, and their rights are measured by his 
duties to them. Justice metes out rewards and 
punishments. In the case of wrongdoing a punish- 
ment is due in order to bring the one who does the 
wrong to a realizing sense of the nature of his act as 
well as to protect the individual and the social body 
from the effects of further transgressions. When a 
boy steals he puts himself outside the pale of honest 
fellowship, and we should show him plainly that we 
do not consider him worthy to associate with us. If 
a man cheats us in trade we should punish him by 
withdrawing our custom. The robber and the mur- 
derer, showing by their deeds their disregard of the 
rights of society, should be deprived of its privileges 
by being imprisoned. 

Punishment should be proportionate to the offence. 
The most effectual punishment is oftentimes the 
shame or remorse which the offender is made to feel. 
President Hyde has truly said: " Punishment is not 



FORGIVENESS 143 

good in itself, but is good relatively to the wrongdoer. 
It is the only way out of wrong into right. The duty 
of inflicting punishment, like all duty, is often hard 
and unwelcome, but we become partakers in every 
wrong which we suffer to go unpunished and unre- 
buked when punishment and rebuke are in our 
power. Punishment need not be brutal or degrad- 
ing. Let mercy season justice. ,, 

What feeling do you have when you see a powerful 
creature illtreat one who is smaller or Defence a kind 
weaker than himself? Doubtless an of justice 
uncontrollable desire to fall upon the strong and 
protect the weak. This impulse is a pretty good 
rule of conduct, and if carried out aright will 
not develop a pugnacious spirit, but will prove a 
better guide than the prudence or cowardice which 
considers all the risks before taking up the side of 
the oppressed. If we receive a real injury, either by 
slander, by theft, or by some violent attack, and allow 
the offender to go unpunished we encourage the 
wrong done. And if we stand by and see those who 
are weaker and less fortunate than ourselves illtreated 
and abused, and offer no resistence, we share in the 
wrong done. It is not alone that we or our friends 
have been attacked, but humanity and justice through 
us. Tolstoi says, " Defence increases evil,'' and as 
proof of his opinion quotes the great Teacher: "But 
I say unto you, that ye resent not evil, but whosoever 



144 LESSONS OJST MORALS 

shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the 
other also." But the One who spoke these words 
attacked the Pharisees with great vehemence and 
drove the money-changers out of the temple with a 
scourge. There is such a thing as " righteous indig- 
nation." War seems barbarous, but when all other 
means fail, and it is undertaken because of patriotism 
or in defence of the weak, it is justifiable. The late 
Spanish-American war was right only in so far as it 
was waged in behalf of a suffering people. 

It is important to understand the true spirit of 
Love forgives justice and defence. We have no need, 
and punishes i n general, of being urged to defend 
ourselves. We are, as a rule, too quick to take 
offence when we feel that our rights have been 
infringed upon, and perhaps too slow in defending 
others. What has been said of justice does not, by 
any means, apply to the quarrelsome, the petulant, the 
suspicious or the selfish who are inclined to resent the 
slightest injury. Neither should punishment be given 
in spite, for it then becomes — not justice, but 
retaliation or vengeance. It is just here that for- 
giveness steps in, and while not withholding the 
punishment, recognizes the humanity of the offender, 
distinguishes between him and his offence, and in a 
spirit of love tries to bring about repentance and 
reformation. Parents who punish their children for 
wrong-doing love them not less but more than if they 



FORGIVENESS 145 

withheld the needed chastisement. The teacher who 
reproves a pupil does not do it in an unforgiving 
spirit, but with the hope that reproof will bring sor- 
row for the wrong and a resolution to do right. All 
punishment that is not tempered by forgiveness, 
which is but a form of love, is inexcusable, and 
hardens the heart of the offender, and gives him 
the right to claim that an offense has been committed 
against him. 

In emphasizing the duty of justice and defence in 
dealing with wrong-doers we should also « when the 
emphasize the fact that the most effec- injury begins 

tive weapons humanity has ever used in ° n , . J ar ' 
r J the kindness 

its struggle against evil have been should begin 
patience, pardon, gentleness, and love. on 0URS 
A patient forbearance, a word of forgiveness, a gentle 
act will often bring repentance when severity fails, 
and no other punishment will be so keenly felt as the 
sorrow and regret that come with the repentance. 
We are also to remember that punishment is to be as 
lenient as the offence will permit. When mercy 
seasons justice — 

" It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath ; it is twice bless'd ; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." 

We should thoroughly appreciate one fact — that 
we ourselves are often the offenders, needing for- 
giveness and deserving punishment. This thought 



146 LESSONS ON MORALS 

should lead us to obey the golden rule and to be as 
"To err is ready to forgive others as we wish them 
human, to for- to be in forgiving us. It is said that "he 
give is lvine w ^ Q cannot forgive others breaks the 
bridge over which he must pass himself. ,, There is 
still another view of this subject. When we have 
knowingly injured another we should make speedy 
reparation. Love demands this. We are all liable 
to err, and unless we wish to shut out much "sweet- 
ness and light" from life there must be the prompt 
and whole-souled apology or confession, the request 
for pardon and the willingness to bear whatever 
penalty may follow. 

It is related that George Washington once, in the 
heat of a debate, applied some offensive epithet to 
Colonel Payne. The colonel sprang to his feet and 
struck Washington so violently that he knocked him 
down. It was the custom at that time, among gentle- 
men, when an affront was given, for the party offended 
to send a challenge to the offender to fight a duel. 
As Washington had received a blow, it was supposed 
by his friends that he would challenge Colonel Payne 
to meet him with deadly weapons and wipe out the 
insult in blood. He disappointed them. Meeting 
Colonel Payne shortly after, he advanced toward him 
with extended hand and said: "Colonel Payne, I used 
language to you that was unbecoming a gentleman, 
and you knocked me down. If you have had satisfac- 



FORGIVENESS 147 

tion, now let us be friends." The apology was ac- 
cepted and the friendship was restored. 

Honorable William P. Fessenden once made a 
remark that was understood as an insult to Mr. 
Seward. When informed of it, and seeing such a 
meaning could be given to his words, he instantly 
went to Mr. Seward and said: "Mr. Seward, I have 
insulted you; I did not mean it." This prompt and 
frank apology so delighted Mr. Seward that, grasping 
his visitor by the hand, he exclaimed : "God bless you, 
Fessenden! I wish you would insult me again." 

"Oh, my dear friends, you who are letting miser- 
able misunderstandings run on from year to year, 
meaning to clear them up some day; you who are 
keeping wretched quarrels alive because you cannot 
quite make up your mind that now is the day to 
sacrifice your pride and kill them; you who are pass- 
ing others sullenly on the street, not speaking to them 
out of some silly spite, and yet knowing it would fill you 
with shame and remorse if you heard that one of them 
was dead to-morrow morning ; if you could only know 
and see and feel, all of a sudden, that 'the time is 
short/ how it would break the spell! How you 
would go instantly and do the thing which you might 
never have another chance to do ! " — Phillips Brooks. 

"Aristippus and ./Eschines having quarreled, Aris- 
tippus came to his opponent and said: '/Eschines, 



148 LESSONS OAT MORALS 

shall we be friends?' 'Yes, replied he,' with all my 
heart.' 'But, remember,' said Aristippus that I, be- 
ing older than you, do make the first motion.' 'Yes,' 
replied ^Eschines, 'and therefore I conclude you are 
the worthier man, for I began the strife, and you be- 
gan the peace.'" 

"Forgive others often, yourself never." — Sj/rus. 

"When thou forgivest, the man who has pierced 
thy heart stands to thee in the relation of the sea- 
worm that perforates the shell of the mussel, which 
straightway closes the wound with a pearl." — Richter. 

"The command 'Love your enemies' is not a hard 
impossibility on the one hand, nor a soft piece of 
sentimentalism on the other. It is possible because 
there is a human, lovable side, even to the worst 
villain if we can only bring ourselves to think on that 
side, and the possibilities it involves. — Hyde. 

"Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying 
for forgiveness, or else forgiving another." 



QUESTIONS 

What is our duty to wrong-doers ? 

What relation has justice to forgiveness ? 

What do you understand by defence as used in this lesson ? 

What is the true spirit of forgiveness? 



FORGIVENESS 149 

What deprives us of the right to inflict punishment for 
rong ? 

How can the just punishment for an offence be determined ? 
What points in the lesson do the illustrations prove? 
Repeat the quotation from Richter. 
Read DeQuincey's anecdote of The Noble Revenge. 



Kindness 



m 



How Kindness Can Become Second Nature 



Opportunities for Kindness 



Unkindness, Harshness Cruelty 



The Recompense 



A Morning Incident 



&•> 



"Kind hearts are more 
than coronets''' 



LESSON XVI 

KINDNESS 

Another form of love is kindness, which, like 
benevolence and forgiveness, incites to good deeds 
and differs from them only in the specific application 
of the latter. Kindness is the practise of the golden 
rule. In the last lesson we spoke of justice as 
a recognition of the rights of others, and it may be 
asked if justice and kindness are not the same. They 
are alike only when justice is tempered by mercy and 
leniency. Sometimes it is said that justice is of the 
head and kindness of the heart. We are told that 
one must not let his ." feelings bias his judgment'' on 
a question of right and wrong — and on certain 
occasions, and to a certain degree always, this prin- 
ciple is right. Without the sterner virtues to rest 
upon, the sweeter and higher tend to sink into soft- 
ness and sentimentalism. Yet a very great portion 
of our life is the life of feeling. In all our conduct 
feeling has a great part to play. We only need to be 
sure that it is rightly directed and not immoderate in 
degree. This being so, the stronger we feel in 
matters of conduct the better, for feeling is the 
powerful force that makes action easy. Kindness is 

i53 



154 LESSONS ON MORALS 

the word that stands preeminently for good feeling, 
and in many of its uses it signifies nearly as much as 
love. 

Like all virtues, kindness will become a habit only 
How kindness w ben it is often practised. We learn 
can become to do by doing. We learn to be kind by 
thinking kind thoughts and doing kind 
acts. We see all about us men and women who are 
brave and generous and true and kind and noble and 
sweet and gracious. How did they become so? By 
yielding to their better impulses or inclinations and 
by doing the better thing until they became masters 
in the moral art. What others have done we can do. 
We can begin in a small way and gain strength with 
practice until we are kind easily, naturally, spon- 
taneously. It may be hard for us at first to exercise 
kindness in certain directions, but if we continue it 
the difficulty diminishes and at last disappears. 

Besides exhibiting kindness toward the poor and 
Opportunities toward wrong-doers, there are innumer- 
for kindness able opportunities in every-day life 
for doing good, and the character of every person 
becomes stronger, richer, and more beautiful as 
he improves these occasions. It is difficult to 
classify opportunities as they arise under all con- 
ditions of life. It remains to us to fill our 
hearts with the spirit of kindness, which brings 
grace and charm into life, and carries regard 



KINDNESS 155 

for others to the point of making it a fine art. Com- 
mon courtesy, which makes the relations of people 
with each other a source of pleasure and happiness, 
has its root in kindness. Kindness in the family 
makes a happy home; kindness to the aged renders 
their last days peaceful and contented; kindness in 
not seeing personal deformity or any peculiarity of 
appearance helps this class of unfortunates to bear 
their misfortune. To consider tenderly the feelings, 
opinions, circumstances of others — what is this but 
kindness? Dr. T. T. Munger says: "One who is 
kind will not talk to the beggar of his rags, nor boast 
of his health before the sick, nor speak of his wealth 
amongst the poor; he will not seem to be fortunate 
amongst the hapless, nor make any show of his virtue 
before the vicious. He will avoid all painful con- 
trasts." 

The great historical illustration of kindness as 
shown in solicitude for others is that of Sidney, at the 
battle of Ziitphen, handing the cup of water, for 
which he longed with the thirst of a dying man, to the 
wounded soldier beside him. "You need it more 
than I," he said. A touching instance of thoughtful 
consideration is related by Samuel Smiles. Two 
English navvies in Paris saw, one rainy day, a hearse 
with its burden wending along the street unattended 
by a single mourner. Falling in behind, they 
followed it to the cemetery. It was only kindness, but 



T56 LESSONS ON MORALS 

it was fine and true. When such a sentiment as 
this is wrought into a conscious habit it reveals the 
"divine glory" that every life may take on. 

It is not given to every one to show such marked 
examples of kindness as have been cited, but in a 
thousand little ways we may exercise the same 
spirit. An encouraging word, a pleasant recogni- 
tion, a little time spent with the lonely, a hopeful 
message or a flower to the sick, a helping hand to the 
weak, a soothing word to the petulant — all these 
attentions bless "him that gives and him that takes." 
Even if we can do no active kindness we can cultivate 
a kindly spirit that will be unconsciously felt by 
others. 

Phillips Brooks tells us: "We owe the most to 
the lives, like the stars, that simply pour down on us 
the calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to 
which we look, and out of which we gather the deepest 
calm and courage. If we can do nothing for our 
fellow-men it is good to know we can be something 
for them; to know that no man or woman of the 
humblest sort can really be strong, kind, pure and 
good without the world being better for it, without 
somebody being helped and comforted by the very- 
existence of that goodness." 

When we stop to think of it, we perceive how far 
beyond all the differences and distinctions between 
human beings are the likenesses of man to man, 



KINDNESS 157 

and this fact should arouse in us all a feeling of 
the common brotherhood of mankind, unkindness 
Unkindness is injustice to one of the harshness, 
same race with ourselves; harshness is crue y 
unjust and cruelty is brutal. The three words in- 
dicate different degrees of the same characteristic. 
Humanity is a word that stands for tenderness toward 
our own kind. Shall we count these three unlovely 
traits as inhuman? 

Young people are sometimes cruel in their thought- 
lessness, often inflicting bodily pain upon others, as is 
seen in hazing and practical joking. When we bring 
discomfort upon another and then laugh at it, it is 
coarse joking and poor wit. It is also directly 
opposed to the law of kindness, which tends "to put 
down all survivals of the beast, the primitive savage, 
and the barbarian." But bodily pain is oftentimes 
more easily borne than some of the other effects of 
cruelty. A mistake, a peculiarity, an accident fre- 
quently involves a ludicrous element, but what is more 
cruel than to laugh at these things when by so doing 
we bring added suffering and confusion to the unfor- 
tunate one. A boy forgets his "declamation" and 
his mates laugh ; a girl makes a mortifying mistake 
in a translation and the class titters; a public speaker 
stammers and the audience giggles. A writer on the 
subject says: "We would like to gather up all the 
jmeaning and emphasis lodged in the word vulgar and 



158 LESSONS ON MORALS 

pour them upon this habit of inconsiderate laughter 
at the misfortunes of others." 

" Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn." 

We have already referred to the effect of kindness 
The recom- upon the character of the one who 
pense bestows it. Kind acts may meet with 
an unworthy and ungrateful return, but the absence 
of gratitude on the part of the receiver cannot destroy 
the satisfaction of one conscious of having done a 
kindness. Generally speaking, our happiness as 
human beings is in proportion to the love we give 
and receive. Kindness begets kindness, and it is, 
let us trust, the infrequent exception when true kind- 
ness is not repaid by gratitude. 

" Kind hearts are more than coronets." 

— Tennyson. 

"Whatever else you may be, you must not be use- 
less, and you must not be cruel. If there is any one 
point which, in six thousand years of thinking about 
right and wrong, wise and good men have agreed 
upon, or successfully by experience discovered, it is 
that God dislikes useless and cruel people more than 
any others ; that His first order is, ' Work while you 
have light ' ; and His second, ' Be merciful while you 
have mercy/ Remember that the happiness of your 
life, and its power, and its part and rank on earth or 



KINDNESS 159 

in heaven depend upon the way you pass your days 
now. Perhaps you think there is no chance of your 
being cruel; and indeed I hope it is not likely that 
you should be deliberately unkind to any creature; 
but unless you are deliberately kind to every creature, 
you will often be cruel to many." — John Ruskin. 

" Scene : Morning on the Brooklyn Bridge cars at the 
hour when the better class of money- 
seekers, both employer and employed, ij^jent 2 
were on their way from Brooklyn homes 
to New York offices. The occupants of the car, 
whose faces were mostly hidden behind the morn- 
ing papers, bore the evidence of prosperity in 
warm overcoats, gloved hands, shining boots, and 
hats to match. Just before the bell rang to start 
the train a frail man, evidently a German, came 
panting into the car, carrying a large bundle 
of overcoats, carefully pinned in a piece of black 
muslin ; the linings of the coats were folded outside, 
and were of shining silk. The man carrying the 
coats wore a thin cotton coat in which he shivered as 
the cold air swept into the car through the open door. 
Three adjoining seats were vacant, and with a nice 
sense of not allowing his burden to interfere with his 
neighbor, the little tailor sank into the middle seat, 
the bundle of coats on his lap projecting on either 
side far enough to cover the adjoining seats. The 



160 LESSONS ON MORALS 

brakeman, a frowning giant, bounded into the car, 
and in a voice loud enough to attract everybody's 
attention said : 'Take care of your bundle; can't have 
you filling up the whole car.' The little tailor did 
not understand one word, but he did the tone and 
gesture; he had offended, and the offence included 
the coats. A frightened, bewildered look came into 
his face as he glanced from passengers to official, but 
there was no solution. He looked at the coats, and 
the seats, and the scowling face above him, and 
arose hurriedly, holding the coats in his thin arms, 
that were strained to their greatest possible length in 
their effort to enfold the bundle. This movement 
made the man and the coats a much greater ob- 
struction than they had been before. 'Get along out 
of here with your bundle, blocking up the whole car,' 
growled the giant in blue coat and brass buttons. 
Language spoke to deaf ears, but the gesture said 
'Go!' Bending under the heavy load, he went out 
on the platform, casting an appealing glance back- 
ward as he went through the door. But at this 
point a new actor appeared on the scene. From 
about the centre of the car a magnificent specimen of 
American manhood leisurely arose. From the top 
of the shining silk hat to the toes of the shining boots 
was written 'prosperity.' One gloved hand grasped 
the paper he had been reading with a grasp that told 
of the muscular power that years of healthful living 



KINDNESS 161 

had preserved and developed. He glanced neither 
right nor left, but with flashing eyes fastened on the 
brakeman's back, went through the door, and standing 
directly in front of the tailor tapped him gently on 
the shoulder, saying pleasantly : 'My friend, put your 
bundle on the gate,' pointing to the closed gate on 
the inner side of the platform. A frightened glance 
was flashed into the speaker's face, and then at the 
scowling brakeman, but the tailor did not move. 
Crowding the paper into his pocket, the new actor in 
this quickly moving drama took the bundle, rested it 
on the gate, and with a kindly 'Stand here/ he 
towered in front of the tailor with shoulders that gave 
a sense of protection againt all possible ills. As the 
train stopped at the New York end of the bridge, the 
tailor and his friend were the last to leave the plat- 
form. As they parted at the head of the stairs the 
gloved hand touched the rim of the silk hat to the 
little, bent man going down the stairs. A face 
radiant answered the salute, but the burdened hands 
made its return impossible. Was it imagination? 
The air seemed eloquent with these words : 

1 The Holy Supper is kept indeed 
In whatso we share with another's need.'" 

— The Outlook, 

" A nameless man, amid a crowd that thronged the daily mart, 
Let fall a word of hope and love, unstudied, from the heart ; 
A whisper on the tumult thrown, a transitory breath — ■ 



1 6 2 LESSONS ON MORALS 

It raised a brother from the dust; it saved a soul from 

death. 
O germ ! O fount ! O word of love! O thought at random 

cast! 
Ye were but little at the first, but mighty at the last." 

— Charles Mackay. 

QUESTIONS 

How can we acquire the virtue of kindness? 

Give some opportunities for kindness not mentioned in the 
text. 

If we do a kindness, what is its effect on ourselves? What 
the effect on the receiver ? 

How can we be cruel? 

What is the lesson in a A Morning I?icidentl 



Kindness to Animals 



m 




Cruelty to Animals 


The Reward 




"For the Fun of 


It" 


3* 





"/ would not enter o?z my list of friends the man who 
needlessly sets foot upon a worm " 



163 



LESSON XVII 

KINDNESS TO ANIMALS 

We have considered the importance of kindness to 
our fellow-men. The duty of kindness is not fully- 
discharged unless we are kind to animals. Animals 
have feelings and affections quite similar to our own, 
and we should recognize this kinship as far as it goes 
and treat them as we should like to be treated. As 
for domestic animals, we owe so much to them that 
gratitude should make us kind. Animals are not 
capable of judging between right and wrong; neither 
do they know how to adapt their strength to their 
work. A horse does not know how heavy a load it 
ought to draw. We should think for animals in these 
matters, and train them in right habits, and give them 
as much pleasure and as little pain as is consistent 
with the work they are able to do. In order to treat 
animals well we must study their natures, habits and 
capacities. In doing so we shall hardly fail to 
become interested in them. We shall find so much 
intelligence, so many curious habits of living, so much 
kindliness and devotion, even in the fiercest of beasts, 
that sympathy will arise with our interest. The 
following pathetic incident well illustrates how keenly 

165 



1 66 LESSONS ON MORALS 

animals enjoy the very things that afford us great 
pleasure : 

"The superintendent of the Sweet Springs mine 
undertook a thorough renovation of the mine the day 
after the miners went on strike, and the first step 
preparatory to cleaning up was to remove the mules 
from the ttnderground stables and put them out on 
pasture. 

"Some of them had not been out of the mine for 
months, a number had been below the surface for 
two or three years, and one had not seen the sun- 
shine for seven years. 

"They were led from the mine, twenty-seven 
patient creatures, and turned loose in Morrison's 
pasture field. They stood about, close together, 
knee-deep in lush, green grass, and sweet red clover, 
with drooping heads and eyes half closed, as though 
dazed by their sudden change of circumstances. At 
last, as the sun dropped down behind Bowman's 
Hill, one gray, old veteran threw up his head and 
sniffed at the fine, fragrant air blowing down the 
valley, and in a moment a little movement went 
through the whole group. 

"The old leader wheeled about sharply, took a 
long look at the clear sky above, the brawling little 
brook chattering over the stones, the grass and the 
trees, then he drew up his head, stiffened his tail, and 
sent forth a prolonged, penetrating, strident heehaw- 



K/NDNESS TO ANIMALS 167 

heehaw, which woke the echoes over on Maple Ridge, 
and with an awkward, lumbering bound he started 
down the long slope. 

"In an instant the whole mass had separated and 
was in motion. Such running, racing, kicking and 
jumping were never before seen — stiff knees, dim 
eyes and spavined joints all forgotten in the pure 
enjoyment of out of doors. They brayed and bel- 
lowed, ran and kicked, stopped for breath, then began 
again. 

"The whole village gathered at the fence to see 
the fun; the men and boys laughed and shouted, the 
babies crowed, and one or two women cried a little, 
for there were sores and lameness and weakness in 
plenty. 

"When night fell they were still rolling about and 
racing, forgetful of the hunger and thirst that might 
be satisfied by the grass and running stream, and one 
who lived at the edge of the pasture field, was 
awakened in the dark hours toward morning by the 
rapid rush of hoofs still thundering down the hillside." 

We often have to take the lives of animals. Some 
we have to use for food; others that Cruelty to 
are injurious or unclean we are obliged animals 
to destroy in self-defence. We do no wrong in kill- 
ing them provided we do not inflict needless pain in 
the process. But when we overload beasts of burden, 
neglect to feed them properly, put them in dark, cold, 



1 68 LESSONS ON MORALS 

unhealthy quarters, leave them uncovered in in- 
clement weather, drive them when lame or exhausted, 
brutally beat them, or use too short a check-rein or 
harness that hurts, then we are cruel. Pulling insects 
to pieces, stoning frogs and robbing birds' nests are 
forms of cruelty sometimes, we are sorry to say, 
practised by boys before they are old enough to 
realize that their sport is purchased at the cost of 
great suffering by these defenseless creatures. The 
simple fact that we are strong and they are weak 
ought to make it evident to all how mean a thing it is 
for us to take advantage of the weakness of these 
creatures which nature has placed under the protec- 
tion of our superior strength. It would be well 
for every boy if he could have Gladstone's spirit in 
this matter. When he attended school at Eton, it 
was the custom of the boys to torture certain animals 
at the annual fair. One day when the crowd was 
making preparation for this cruel amusement Glad- 
stone flung himself into the midst of the company and 
declared that he would make a mark in a good round 
hand on the face of any boy who should dare to 
proceed. 

Like kindness to people, kindness to animals reacts 

upon our hearts and makes us more 
The reward . , , . , 

tender and sympathetic toward every 

living creature. Lincoln, whom we all revere for 

his courage, was very humane in his treatment of 



KINDNESS TO ANIMALS 169 

animals. Once when riding through a piece of woods 
with friends he saw some young birds that had fallen 
from their nest. He dismounted, caught the birds, 
and placed them carefully in their nest. When his 
friends laughed at him for it, he said: "I could not 
have slept to-night if I had not restored those young 
birds to their mother." 

Animals are capable of affection, and when they 
receive kind treatment at our hands they, as a rule, 
repay us by showing their attachment for us. 

" I would not enter on my list of friends 
(Through graced with polished manners and fine sense, 
Yet lacking sensibility), the man 
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. 1 ' 

— Cow per. 

" Every cruel blow inflicted on an animal leaves an 
ugly scar on our own hardened hearts which mars 
and destroys our capacity for the gentlest and sweetest 
sympathy for our fellow-men. " — Hyde. 

"I was floating around in my boat one bright day 
in June, when a sea-gull, which, on the "For the fun 
wing, is one of the most graceful of birds, of it " 

but whose flesh is not used for food, came sailing 
over my head. 'What a splendid shot!' I said, and 
seizing my gun, I fired at him. As I drew him into 
the boat, suffering much agony, he turned his dying 
eyes upon me, as if he said: 'Why did you shoot 



170 LESSONS ON MORALS 

me? I was enjoying myself floating on the air, as 
you on the water in your boat. Why did you shoot 
me?' Having done what I had, it would have been 
more merciful to end his sufferings at once, but I had 
no more heart for killing, and the minutes that passed 
before he died seemed hours to me. The remorse 
for that wanton shooting preyed on my spirits for 
days; and the remembrance of it has most effectually 
cured me of my desire to kill, for the fun of it, any 
creature that God has made." 



QUESTIONS 

Do animals remember? 

Do animals seem to feel pleasure or gratitude? 

How do they differ mentally from man ? 

What do you think of killing birds in order to use them for 
millinery purposes? 

Is it an instance of cruelty to bang the tails of horses? 
Why? 

Read Rab and His Friends. Read the life of Walter Scott 
and learn of his fondness for horses and dogs. 



Friends 



m 



Choice of Companions and Friends 



Loyalty to Friends 



Be 


FRAVAL 


of Friendship 




Effusiveness 


Blessings 


of Friendship 






?® 



■A man that hath friends must 
short himself friendly " 



171 



LESSON XVIII 

FRIENDS 

In addition to that love of humanity which makes 
the " whole world kin" there is a subtle sympathy 
that draws together people of congenial tastes, com- 
mon interests, or kindred pursuits. Persons to 
whom we are thus drawn and who in like manner are 
drawn to us we call our friends. The love we have 
for our friends is somewhat different from the senti- 
ment that controls us in kindness and benevolence. 
It is a more intense feeling, and is not exercised in a 
charitable spirit because one is poor and in need of 
our bounty, but because there is a mutual pleasure 
and benefit in the intimate association of one person 
with another. True friendship does not rest upon 
anything of a sordid nature. In its real significance 
it is one of the most unselfish forms of love. When 
it exists for the sake of pleasure or profit that is not 
mutual it does not deserve the name of friendship. 
Aristotle says: " Those who wish well to their friends 
for their friends' sake are friends in the truest sense. 
Such friendship requires long and familiar intercourse. 
For they cannot be friends till each show and ap- 
prove himself to the other as worthy to be loved. A 

*73 



174 LESSONS ON MORALS 

wish to be friends may be of rapid growth, but not 
friendship. " 

" Who knows the joys of friendship — 
The trust, security, and mutual tenderness, 
The double joys, where each is glad for both ? 
Friendship, our only wealth, our last retreat and strength, 
Secure against ill-fortune and the world." 

Emerson says that one need not seek for friends; 

Ch . - they will come of themselves. Solomon, 
companions and in his proverb, touches this matter more 
mends comprehensively when he says: "A man 
that hath friends must show himself friendly." Let 
one offer to the world a true, generous, sympathetic 
nature, and, rich or poor, he will have friends. The fine 
decision for such a one to make is whom he shall 
admit into this close association. Without our own 
seeking we are often thrown with people, either in 
school or business, who are for a part of the time at 
least our associates. This does not necessitate inti- 
mate and sympathetic relations, but it does necessitate 
making a choice and standing firm in our choice. It 
is not easy to formulate rules to guide us in this 
matter, but in general it may be said that we should 
avoid all companionship that falls below our tastes 
and our standard of right. If we meet a person 
whose knowledge of evil ways is close and full, we 
may be sure he is not sound at heart. If our asso- 
ciate swears, or lies, or drinks, or is tricky, or vile in 



FRIENDS 175 

his talk, if his thoughts run easily to baseness, he is 
not worthy to be called a friend. If he is without high 
ambition, if he lives for money, or dress, or society, 
or popularity alone, he can do little for us. If he is 
cruel, dishonest, penurious, if he scoffs at the good 
and is skeptical of virtue or is scornful of good 
custom, we cannot afford to class ourselves with him. 
Familiarity with evil never ceases to be dangerous to 
anyone. 

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
As to be hated needs but to be seen; 
Yet seen too oft, familiar with its face, 

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.' , 

We should choose as our friends persons of true 
worth and nobility of character. The best companion 
is one who is wiser and better than ourselves. "Keep 
good company and you shall be of the number," said 
George Herbert. "A man is known by the company 
he keeps" is a saying common to triteness, but noth- 
ing can be more certain. Familiarity with goodness 
and greatness is as powerful in the forming of 
character as familiarity with vice is in destroying it. 
The young may often find the friendship of their 
teachers a great source of help and inspiration. Of 
Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, it is said: "His very pres- 
ence seemed to create a new spring of health and 
vigor within his pupils, and to give to life an interest 
and elevation which remained with them long after 



176 LESSON'S ON MORALS 

they had left him; and dwelt so habitually in their 
thoughts as a living image, that when death had 
taken him away, the bond appeared to be still un- 
broken and the sense of separation almost lost." 

So also it was said of Dugald Stuart, that he 
breathed the love of virtue into whole generations of 
pupils. "To me," said one of his pupils, ''his talks 
were like the opening of the heavens. I felt that I 
had a soul. His noble views, unfolded in glorious 
sentences, elevated me into a higher world. They 
changed my whole nature." 

Association with the good is invariably productive 
of good. Like begets like, and good begets good. 
An Eastern fable represents some rich soil as saying: 
".I was common clay till roses were planted in me." 

It has been said that it is only in the first third of 

Loyalty to our three score years and ten that life- 
friends long friends are made. Agreeable asso- 
ciations may be formed later, but lasting friendships 
are made while the mind is plastic and open to im- 
pressions. We should, then, make friends in early 
life, and once made we should hold them fast. It is 
one of the regrets of after life that early friendships 
have not been kept up. Shakespeare well says : 
" The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel." 

Between the closest friends there is abundant 
opportunity for mutual patience and forbearance. 



FRIENDS 177 

Knowing our own imperfections, we should not expect 
perfection in others. Neither should we wish to monopo- 
lize the interest and attention of anyone. Some people 
are troubled if their friends do not seem to be wholly 
bound up in them, They do not realize that the larger 
one's life is the better worth having is his friendship. 

It is not the truest friendship that harbors a spirit 
of rivalry or jealousy towards its object, but this is so 
common that there is a familiar saying that a person 
always has a certain pleasure in hearing of the mis- 
fortunes of his best friend. This phase of human 
nature was illustrated in Punch by a picture of a man 
reading a magazine, with a pleased look on his face. 
His friend, entering, notices this and asks: "Are you 
reading a favorable notice of your book?" "No," is 
the answer, " I am reading an unfavorable notice of 
yours." But this feeling is unworthy of friendship. 
A true friend will rejoice in a friend's success and 
sorrow in his defeats as though they were his own. 
If his friend is unpopular he will stand up for him, if 
in the wrong he will tell him of it honestly and 
kindly, if accused of wrong-doing he will believe in 
his innocence to the last. 

Friend confides to friend much that he would not 
have others know. Moreover, the inti- Betrayal 
macy of friendship reveals the deep of 

secrets of our hearts, of which we 
would not speak even to a friend and which we 



17$ LESSONS ON MORALS 

hardly acknowledge to ourselves. Sometimes, proud 
of the trust reposed in us, we are tempted to show 
off our knowledge and divulge what has been told us 
or what we have discovered in the confidence of 
friendship. This is the meanest thing one person 
can do to another. One who betrays a friend should 
be deprived of friends. Such betrayal is the un- 
pardonable social vice. 

While we are not to crush the sweetness out of life 

in youth, we ought to guard against a 
Effusiveness : . \ ' . ,. , , f 

kind ot sentimentality that leads us to 

sudden and intense friendships that languish and die 
about as soon as they arise. They are not really 
friendships, but selfishness, or weak indulgence in 
our fondness for pouring our innermost thoughts into 
a sympathetic ear. This is effusivenes and indicates 
great lack of self-control and refinement. We never 
quite respect one who tells us everything. We may 
take our friends into our hearts but not into that 
innermost place, our heart of hearts. We should 
have few confidants. Secrets are not in themselves 
good things, but having them it is well for us to keep 
them. Absorbing and exclusive friendships are un- 
wise, as are also those in which one person sinks his in- 
dividuality in that of another. No independence, no 
self-reliance and no strength of character is developed 
when a person concedes everything to his friend. 
Emerson speaks truly and forcibly on this matter: 



FRIENDS 179 

"Let my friend not cease an instant to be himself. 
I hate, when I look for a manly furtherance, or at 
least a manly resistance, to find a mush of con- 
cession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend 
than his echo. The condition which high friendship 
demands is ability to do without it. There must be 
very two before there can be very one." 

Perhaps the greatest blessing that comes to us 
through friendship is the deep satisfac- Blessings of 
tion we have in the fact that we are not friendship 
making the journey of life alone; that other lives are 
linked to ours, and other hearts are feeling our joys and 
sorrows as their own. Companionship of the wise and 
good never fails to have a most valuable influence in 
the formation of character, increasing our knowledge, 
strengthening our resolves, elevating our aims. 
Tyndall speaks of Faraday's friendship as energy and 
inspiration. After spending an hour with him he 
wrote: "His work excites admiration, but contact 
with him warms and elevates the heart. Here surely 
is a strong man. I love strength, but let me not 
forget the example of its union with modesty, tender- 
ness and sweetness in the character of Faraday." 

"This matter of friendship is often regarded 
slightingly, as a mere accessory of life, a happy 
chance if one falls into it, but not as entering into the 
substance of life. No mistake could be greater. It 



I50 LESSONS ON MORALS 

is not, as Emerson says, ' glass threads or frost-work/ 
but the solidest thing we know. There is in friend 
ship something of all relations, and something above 
them all. It is the golden thread that ties the hearts 
of all the world, Happiness, success, character, 
destiny, largely turn upon it. 

"It is often hard to tell where the good that is in 
us comes from, but most of it is inspired, caught by 
contact with the good. 

"It is the beginning of a tragedy sad beyond 
thought when a young man enters a set of a lower 
moral tone than his own — the set that drinks a little, 
and gambles a little; some of whom steal a little from 
their employers on the score of a small salary, and 
affect a little deeper knowledge of the world, and lie 
with less hesitation, and scoff with a louder accent. 
It is not a pleasant sight to see a young man cast by 
chance, or drawn by persuasion, into such a set as 
this. Superiority of mind is not proof against it." 

— Mnnger. 

"Live with wolves and you will learn to howl." 

— Spanish proverb. 

" Where friendship's spoke, honesty's understood, 
For none can be a friend that is not good." 



FRIENDS 181 

QUESTIONS 

How should we choose our friends ? 

Of what benefit should friends be to each other ? 

Explain the meaning of the Eastern fable. 

How can we be loyal to our friends ? 

Repeat what Emerson has said in regard to a friend. 

What is the meaning of the Spanish proverb ? 

Read Emerson's Essay on Friendship. 



The Home 



m 



Obedience 



Home Rests Upon Love as Well as Law 



Disobedience and Ingratitude 



'There is No Place Like Home" 



*%> 



u Hoj?ie is the sacred refuge 
of 07ir life " 



183 



LESSON XIX 

THE HOME 

Love shows itself in many different ways, exerting 
its beneficent influence on humanity at large, bind- 
ing together those people in a community of common 
tastes and interests, drawing still closer friends and 
companions, and uniting by the strongest ties of all 
the smallest group — the family, which, made up of 
father and mother, brothers and sisters, and other 
relatives, is the most important and the most helpful 
of human associations. It is in the family that rela- 
tions may and ought to be so close that each mem- 
ber loses his separate self to find a larger and nobler 
self in a common good "in which each individual 
shares and which none may monopolize." 

Home is the name we give to the place where our 
family life is lived. It ought to be, as it is to most 
persons, the dearest spot on earth. There we find 
sympathy and loving words and kind deeds, and there 
we may repay these kindnesses and each do his full 
part toward making the family a happy one. This 
small and close body is powerful for good, because 
it is small — and the association intimate and con- 
tinuous. We associate with others in work, or play, 

185 



1 86 LESSONS ON MORALS 

or school, and in various other places, but at home we 
not only eat at the same table and sleep under the 
same roof, but we know one another, and can help 
and love one another day after day and year after 
year, until in the family we die as into the family we 
were born. Home is almost the sweetest word in our 
language, because it stands for the greatest love and 
fellow-service and for the most unselfish and tender 
devotion. 

" Home, home, sweet, sweet home, 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." 

Obedience to moral and civil law is in the world of 

men what obedience to physical law is 
Obedience . . _ . r _ . . . 

in the world ot nature, it is subjection 

to the law of gravitation that keeps the planets and 

all the heavenly bodies in their places. Wordsworth 

had this idea in mind when, in his great " Ode to 

Duty," he sang: 

" Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ; 
And the most ancient heavens through Thee are 
fresh and strong. 1 ' 

Obedience to natural law brings seed-time and 
harvest in their proper seasons. Obedience to the 
laws of hygiene brings health. We can neither make 
nor unmake the rules of health. They are facts of 
human nature that no one can destroy, and if we wish 
to be well and strong we must submit ourselves to 
their guidance. In the same way there are rules for 



THE HOME 187 

social welfare and individual happiness that have been 
evolved by long experience and that arise from 
the relations of man living in society. These rules 
make up what is called the moral law, and just as we 
obey the laws of hygiene in order to preserve our 
health, so we must obey the moral law in order to be 
happy. It is said: " Obedience is the highway to 
welfare." 

The lesson of obedience begins in the home. The 
father is the natural head of the family. The mother 
is his friend, companion, and helper. Father and 
mother should, and do, as a rule, act in accordance 
with the moral life of the family in supporting, train- 
ing, and loving their children. In our infancy, when 
we are weak and helpless, they care for us, providing 
food, shelter, and clothing; and when we are older 
they furnish us with opportunities for gaining an 
education, and guide us, to the best of their ability, 
in doing that which will result in our highest good. 
To make the home happy, and to return, in part, the 
love and help so freely bestowed by our parents, we 
should render to them perfect obedience. It is the 
right of father and mother to be the law-makers and 
the law-executors for their children, and until children 
are old enough to understand why they are directed 
to do thus and so, they should do it simply because 
their parents direct them. They should render 
prompt and cheerful obedience, as the soldier gives 



1 88 LESSONS ON MORALS 

instant attention to the commands of an officer. In 

this way alone can the happiness of the family be 

secured, and in this way as in no other can a habit of 

obedience be formed which has to be observed in 

every kind of association with our fellow-man, in busi- 

nes, in common social intercourse, in school, or as 

citizen of the town, state, or nation. 

Perhaps young people who find the views of their 

Home rests parents in opposition to their own do not 

upon love as comprehend how obedience and love 
well as law , , , . . , « 

can be made to harmonize with each 

other. They want their own way, and do not 
see how their parents can love them and still not 
yield to their wishes and grant their requests. Par- 
ents love their children not less, but more, even when 
they force them, if necessary, to do what is reason- 
able and right. The father or mother sees much 
more clearly than the unwilling boy or girl what is 
fair and right, and hence children should submit 
to what they do not fully understand, trusting their 
parents, and believing that when they are capable of 
understanding they will realize that love can compel 
obedience. But when love and trust are mutual, the 
law of obedience, though still holding, sinks out of 
sight, and love, helpfulness, kindness from each to all 
and from all to each take its place. Love is now the 
fulfilling of the law of obedience. We obey because 
we love our parents. When love reigns, how much 



THE HOME 189 

children can do to make the home happy! How 
loyally they will refuse to do anything contrary to the 
known wishes of father or mother! What fond ser- 
vice will they render them! How valiantly will the 
older brother defend and protect his younger brothers 
and sisters! How tenderly and patiently will child- 
ren minister to parents and kindred in misfortune and 
old age! In the happiest home each member of the 
family shows his devotion to that common interest in 
which all share. 

" Nor need we power or splendor, 
Wide hall or lordly dome ; 
The good, the true, the tender, 
These form the wealth of home." 

Nothing can surpass a mother's love for her child- 
ren nor a father's concern for their hap- Di SO b e dience 
piness and well-being, and when children and 

do not make a suitable return for this m 2 ratltude 
tender affection, when they show only ingratitude, 
nothing so grieves the parents' hearts. It is sad that 
all homes are not happy, but the reason they are not 
is often shown in the impatience and irritability of their 
inmates. Many children are negligent of duty, care- 
less of obligations, selfish in placing their own inter- 
ests first, in constant opposition to parental authority, 
and altogether wanting in those small amenities of 
life that bring so much happiness and good-feeling. 
There is no unhappier spot on earth than a home in 



190 LESSONS ON MORALS 

which insubordination and discord dwell. A habit 
of disobedience formed in youth brings endless evils in 
it's train. The disobedient child in the family is the 
disobedient pupil at school, and later is the disobedient 
citizen. The disobedient citizen is the law-breaker. 
In the true home we love and help one another 
" There is no without asking a return. It is our pleas- 
place like ure to serve rather than to be served, to 
give rather than to receive, to help and 
bless continually by word and deed. Thus we 
make firm the family bond and think the home, 
as we should, the dearest place on earth. For 
it is there that we can rest; there that we have 
perfect trust in one another; there that each can 
confide to the other his joys and sorrows, hopes and 
fears; there that the child can share with father and 
mother every plan, every thought, every purpose of 
imagination and ambition. It is there that we can be 
perfectly frank, perfectly natural; there that we re- 
ceive kind admonition and wise counsel; there that 
our characters are shaped for good. Lincoln said: 
"I owe all I am or expect to be to my angel mother. ,, 
"A kiss from my mother," said West, "made me a 
painter." Darwin, who was one of the most famous 
students of nature, tells us that it was his sisters who 
made him humane. A person who met Goethe's 
mother said: "Now do I understand how Goethe has 
become the man he is." 



THE HOME 191 

The Lares and Penates were the household gods 
of the Romans. A perpetual fire was kept on the 
hearth in their honor. When one of the family came 
home after an absence he saluted those gods as well 
as his relatives. So we should consider the home a 
holy place, too sacred for wrong to be permitted to 
enter, a shrine consecrated to love and duty. 

" So far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a 
temple of the hearth, watched over by household 
gods, before whose faces none may come but those 
whom they can receive with love — so far as it is 
this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade 
and light — shade as of a rock in a weary land, and 
light as of a Pharos on a stormy sea; so far it vindi- 
cates the name and fulfills the praise of home," 
— Ruskin. 

" There is beauty all around, when there's love at home ; 
There is joy in every sound, when there's love at home." 

" If you have brothers, sisters, a father, a mother, 
weigh earnestly what claim does lie upon you, on be- 
half of each, and consider it as the one thing needful 
to pay them more and more honestly and nobly what 
you owe. What matter how miserable one is, if one 
can do that? That is the sure and steady discon- 
nection and extinction of whatsoever miseries one has 
in the world." — Carlyle. 



I9 2 LESSONS ON MORALS 

"The mother in her office holds the key 
Of the soul ; and she it is who stamps the coin 
Of character, and makes the being who would be a savage, 
But for her gentle cares, a noble man ; 
Then crown her Queen o' the world." 

— Old Play. 

QUESTIONS 

What rules a happy home? 

Why is obedience needed in a home? 

Who shall prescribe the laws of home? 

How long should children obey their parents? 

What makes trouble in the home? 

Is there any other influence so powerful as the home in 
forming character? 

Read Burns's Cotter's Saturday Night. Cowper's Wi?tter 
Evening, Whittier's Snow Bound. 



The School 



mz 



The Seven School Virtues 



Other School Influences 



Moral Effects of Study and of Studies 



Dangers of the Schools 



Opportunities Ought to be Improved 



&•/ 



" ' Tis education forms 
the common mind" 



1 93 



LESSON XX 

THE SCHOOL 

School is considered primarily a place for the 
training of the intellect, but intellectual and moral 
training can hardly be separated. There is scarcely 
a single detail either in the instruction of the school, 
in its mechanical arrangements, or in its discipline, 
that does not bear with more or less directness upon 
the moral development of the pupil. We have already 
referred to the influence of friends and companions. 
Outside of home there is no influence so potent 
for good or ill as association with teachers and school- 
mates. The two principles of obedience and love, so 
essential in the family, are indispensable in the 
school, where community life is broadened and so 
many new relations arise. Also, as in the family, so 
in the school, the best moral training comes when 
there is obedience and mutual love, and when love 
conceals obedience. This love, of course, must first 
exist in the heart of the teacher. It does not need 
to be proclaimed. "It beams from the eyes, radiates 
from the face, breathes its benediction in the voice 
and discloses itself in movement and bearing." Such 
love offered by the teacher to pupils bears fruit a 

i95 



196 LESSONS ON MORALS 

thousandfold in their hearts, and the school becomes 
a tremendous force in that which " makes for right- 
eousness." If we discredit the power of the principle 
of love in school," says Dr. Emerson White, "let us 
read the touching story of Pestalozzi's experience at 
Stanz, the Swiss village where French soldiers met 
the heroic resistance of the Swiss peasants with in- 
human slaughter. Few school-rooms have ever been 
filled with more unlovable and disorderly pupils than 
the forty or more destitute and degraded children 
whom Pestalozzi received with open arms on that 
cold day of January, 1799. And with what love and 
self-sacrifice were they cared for and served, and 
what a conquest of hearts and reformation of lives 
were the results! 'If ever there was a miracle,' says 
Michelet, 'it was here — the miracle of love. " 

Dr. Emerson E. White has ingeniously compressed 
the virtues especially inculcated in the 

e seven sc hools into the mystic number seven — 
school virtues J 

namely, regularity of attendance, punctu- 
ality, neatness, accuracy, silence, industry and obedi- 
ence. We have already considered most of these 
virtues, and those that have not been touched upon 
are so apparent as to need no special mention. If 
we look at this list closely, we shall realize that we 
have known each of these virtues as a requirement of 
school. Sometimes we speak of them as rules of 
school. The last-named virtue includes all the rest. 



THE SCHOOL 197 

If we obey implicitly and cheerfully the other re- 
quirements we do our part in making a good school 
and reap the highest benefit from it of which we are 
capable. 

It is well, here, to recall the meaning of the word 
virtue. When a duty is done continuously and per- 
sistently, so that we do it almost " without thinking," 
or unconsciously, we form a habit that is called a 
virtue. 

It is difficult for pupils to appreciate the more re- 
mote good that accrues from obedience to the rules of 
school. Not until they reach maturity can they fully 
realize the power of habits formed in their school- 
days, and the benefit that results from right habits of 
conduct. They must trust parents and teachers, 
who are older and wiser in this respect, and yield 
willingly and earnestly to every good influence that 
surrounds them. Not a single one of the seven vir- 
tues here mentioned but will be of the utmost ad- 
vantage in later life. Present obedience to school 
requirements is almost sure to mean future success. 

There are many virtues resulting from attending a 

good school that are not included in Dr. 

White's list. Association with a large 0th f sch001 

& influences 

number of people, as is the case in most 
schools, requires a consideration of their rights and 
needs as shown by justice, kindness, and courtesy. 
Truthfulness and honesty ought to be cultivated in 



I9 8 LESSONS ON MORALS 

school. Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, a most distinguished 
teacher, valued veracity more highly than any other 
quality and sought most diligently to instil this virtue 
into the minds of his pupils. When lying was de- 
tected he treated it as a great moral offence; but 
when a pupil made an assertion he accepted it with 
confidence. "If you say so, that is enough. Of 
course I believe your word." By thus trusting them 
he educated the young in truthfulness, the boys at 
length coming to say to one another: "It's a shame to 
tell him a lie — he always believes one." Here was 
the right spirit in teacher and pupil. Nearly every 
good influence may come from the school, whether 
small or large, whether amply or scantily equipped, if 
the right spirit pervades it. It depends almost 
entirely upon the mutual relations of teacher and 
pupil. m 

While the moral influence of the school proceeds 
M 1 ff t of ' ar S e 'y £ rom what is called the "disci- 
study and of pline," or whatever pertains to conduct, 

studies much that is moral proceeds directly 
from study and the subject of study pursued. In the 
first place, every act of study is moral in its effect, 
since it trains the will. Colonel Parker says: "Habits 
of continuity of action in one direction, of patience, 
persistence, courage, self-control, are formed by the 
exercise of the will in the actual doing of what there 
is to be done." The recitation or, indeed, any ex- 



THE SCHOOL 199 

pression of facts as definitely as they exist in the 
mind tends to develop a habit of truthfulness. Thus, 
speech, writing, music, drawing, painting, modeling, 
making, every act of expression, under true teaching 
is an ethical act. We may know, then, that when we 
study earnestly and persistently, or even when we 
recite a lesson to the best of our ability, we are 
developing our moral as well as our intellectual 
nature. The contents of various studies furnish 
material for thought and reflection that naturally 
exert a beneficent effect upon conduct and character. 

We can do no better than to quote Colonel Parker 
on this point: " History, the account of the human 
spirit striving through long ages to find the truth; 
biography, the record of the lives of men and women 
who have lived and died for humanity; pure litera- 
ture, the reflection of noble souls, and the interpre- 
tation of nature; civics, the science of community 
life; science, the search for the natural laws revealed 
through the universe by the Creator; mathematics, the 
weighing and measuring of His work; all are moral." 

We will not go so far as to state that knowledge of 
these subjects will make a person moral, but that the 
general trend is in this direction is certain. 

A danger often attendant on school life is that of 
bad companionship. In the large num- Dangers of the 
ber congregated in one school-room, schools 
or the still larger number on the play-ground, 



200 LESSONS ON MORALS 

there will always be found undesirable associ- 
ates. We may not be able to avoid association, but 
we can and should avoid intimacy with the bad 
school-mate. If the bad wish the companionship of 
the good, they themselves should become good. 

School furnishes many occasions for evasion and 
deceit, and sad to say, these are too often improved. 
Pupils sometimes make false reports of their conduct 
or of the preparation of their lessons; they "cheat" 
in various ways. Cheating is so common in some 
schools that the pupils have no higher standard of 
honesty than to escape being found out in deception. 
They seem to consider it justifiable to cheat as much 
as they can without detection. In fairness to pupils 
it should be stated that the school in which this spirit 
predominates is not a good one, and the responsibility 
for the evil should, at least, be shared by those who 
have the school in charge. Justice as well as love 
should be mutual. There are schools in which the 
tests of honesty are too severe for the undisciplined 
minds of the young. But let us hope that this con- 
dition of things is the exception rather than the rule, 
and let us each do our part in keeping up the moral 
tone of our own school, however strongly tempted 
we may be to do otherwise. 

The spirit of good comradeship sometimes prevails 
to such an extent among pupils that they consider it 
honorable to deceive a teacher, if by so doing they can 



THE SCHOOL 201 

keep a schoolmate from suffering the penalty of 
wrong -doing. While tattling is to be condemned, lying 
is equally reprehensible; silence is better than either. 
But when a wise and discreet teacher feels compelled 
to ask for the truth, it should be told. When a wrong- 
doer has not manliness enough to acknowledge his 
offence, he does not deserve great leniency on the 
part of his fellow-pupils. At least he deserves no 
sacrifice of truth on their part, and they owe it to them- 
selves to run no risk of forming an untruthful habit. 

Pupils sometimes seem to put themselves in an at- 
titude of defence toward their teacher, as if he were 
their enemy. This feeling should not be harbored, as 
the teacher is generally one of the best of friends and 
ready to prove himself such when opportunity arises. 
Pupils should remember that teachers are not imper- 
vious to the effect of kind treatment and that they 
are often more gratified at receiving it from a pupil 
than from any one else. It is destructive of good 
nature and sweetness of character to cherish a feeling 
against a teacher for so many years as the school life 
lasts. Not only is school rendered unenjoyable, but 
a sour and surly disposition is apt to result. 

A noted educator says: "All the world goes to 

school to-day," meaning that school facili- n . ... 
J \ *=> Opportunities 

ties are rapidly increasing in all civilized ought to be 
countries. Interest in schools is universal improved 
and no other public cause brings about such a willing 



202 LESSONS ON MORALS 

expenditure of money. Parents everywhere are mak- 
ing great effort to give their children an opportunity 
to attend school, and children in great numbers are 
seemingly taking advantage of their opportunity. 
Books and all the necessary paraphernalia of instruc- 
tion are furnished free of cost. And yet, with books 
and time and everything needed for work, there are 
many who consider it hard to do under these pleasant 
circumstances what others, in years gone by, thought 
worth doing under great difficulty. Lincoln used to 
study by firelight after a hard day's work, and he had 
not even the luxury of a slate, but for "ciphering" 
used a board, which he planed down when it became 
covered with figures. A noted English writer tells 
us how he studied. When he needed a book, pen, or 
paper, he had to go without food, although he was all 
the time half starved. The edge of his berth at sea 
was his seat to study on, and in the winter evenings 
he could have no light except that of the fire. 

Hundreds of instances of this kind might be cited 
to show how men who have become famous prized an 
education and what hardships they endured and under 
what difficulties they worked to gain it. We who are 
more highly favored should be stimulated by their 
worthy example. If the incentive of the highest per- 
sonal good is not sufficient to spur pupils on in 
school, they should not be forgetful of parents and 
friends who are interested in their success and who 



THE SCHOOL 203 

would be disappointed by their failure. It is related 
of the famous French scientist Pasteur, who is dis- 
tinguished for the discovery of the nature and cure of 
hydrophobia, that when a boy he neglected his 
studies. He preferred fishing and other amusements 
to the work of the school. At last, however, he 
realized that his father, who had little means, was 
making great sacrifices in order that he might obtain 
an education He then began to study in good 
earnest. It was the thought of what he owed his 
father that made him what he was. 

" 'Tis education forms the common mind ; 
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd." 

— Pope. 
U A little learning is a dangerous thing; 

c* o o " 

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring, 
For shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, 
But drinking largely sobers us again," p 

QUESTIONS 

Upon what two principles does the welfare of a school 
mainly depend ? 

In what different ways is truthfulness shown in school? 

What is the moral tendency of the study oi mathematics? 

What moral habits does the study of chemistry or physics 
tend to inculcate? 

What is the moral value of hand -work or manual training? 

Why is silence classed as one of the school virtues? 
Why regularity of. attendance? 

What are some of your duties to your teacher? 

Read Tom Brown at Rugby. 



The Community 



mi 

Public Spirit 
Duties of the Coming Citizen 

The Selfish Citizen 

Who Makes the Bad Citizen? 

The Reward of Good Citizenship 



3* 



"Not my cotintry right or wrong, but if I can 
help it she shall never be wrong' 1 '' 



205 



LESSON XXI 

THE COMMUNITY 

A community, in the accepted use of the term, 
means a number of people associated together by- 
reason of their residing in the same locality and being 
subject to the same local laws and regulations. The 
family and the school are miniature communities. In 
them and in the community we live in society, in 
which the highest duty of the individual is to con- 
tribute all in his power to the best good of all. The 
community is larger than the family, but as the 
members of a family are held together by a close and 
tender love, and by a recognition of mutual rights are 
kind and helpful to one another, so the people in a 
public capacity by a cultivation of a love for mankind 
can be similarly united. 

In a community there are laws and conditions of 
social welfare, and whatever these laws require men 
and women to do, in order that society be strong 
and pure and helpful to each person who is a mem- 
ber of it, every man and woman should do. It is 
a duty. Some of these laws are written down, 
and those who break them are dealt with by a court 

207 



208 LESSONS ON MORALS 

of justice. But other commands of the moral law are 

left to what we call public opinion to deal with. Thus 

one who is untruthful is rarely dealt with by the 

written law, but is condemned by public opinion. 

Most people are greatly influenced by what others 

think and say about them, so that many wrongs are 

righted more effectually by leaving them to popular 

judgment than by passing laws against them. 

When we feel that we belong to the community 

and that the community belongs to us; 
Public spirit , , 

when its interests are ours; when we are 

ready to maintain its rights and redress its wrongs, 
bear its losses as well as enjoy its prosperity, we are 
public spirited. President Hyde expresses the idea 
most forcibly: "The readiness to contribute a fair 
share of our time, money, and influence to the larger 
public interests of education, philanthropy, reform, 
public improvements, which no individual can under- 
take alone, is an important part of our social duty. 
Every beneficent course, every effort to arouse 
public sentiment against a wrong, or to make it 
effective in the enforcement of a right ; every en- 
deavor to unite people in social intercourse; every 
plan to extend the opportunities for education; every 
measure for the relief of the deserving poor, and the 
protection of homeless children; every wise move- 
ment for the prevention of crime, vice, or intemper- 
ance, is entitled to receive from each one of us the 



THE COMMUNITY 209 

same intelligent attention, the same keenness of inter- 
est, the same energy of devotion, the same sacrifice 
of inclination and convenience, the same resoluteness 
and courage of action that we give to our private 
affairs. These are the marks of public spirit and the 
manifestations of social virtue." 

The young have little opportunity of showing such 
public spirit as is here described, inas- Duties of the 
much as they are not yet old enough coming citizen 
nor wise enough to have a part in the direction of 
community affairs; but they ought to know what the 
laws and regulations are, in order to obey them. 
When old enough they should interest themselves in 
new legislative measures as they come up, and try to 
form an opinion as to their merit. The combined 
efforts of the young people of a community have 
often brought beneficent results. Juvenile societies 
to promote the neatness of streets by keeping 
them clear of papers and rubbish have improved 
the appearance of many a village or neighborhood, 
and have had a tendency to make older people more 
thoughtful in such matters. Young people's tem- 
perance and benevolent organizations, when con- 
ducted properly, render good service. A good de- 
bating society is a moral force in a community in that 
it appeals to the higher interests and elevates the taste. 

Then, too, one may do a great deal single-handed. 
One girl has a musical talent and can contribute 



210 LESSONS ON MORALS 

largely to the entertainment of a company; another 
has a pleasant home and can do much in a social way 
for schoolmates and friends; another is possessed of 
a gracious manner that seems to radiate courtesy. 
Talents are diverse, but there is really no boy or girl 
who can not in one way or another do something to 
make better the community in which he dwells. He 
who does his part in this way is fitting himself for 
good citizenship. 

A humble but touching illustration of public spirit 
was given by a poor woman whom a policeman 
roughly accused of stealing. He saw her, as he 
thought, trying to conceal something in her apron, and 
judged that she had committed some theft and was 
trying to evade him and escape the penalty. He 
ordered her to show him the contents of her apron 
and was surprised to see nothing but bits of broken 
glass. 

"What are you going to do with that broken 
glass?" he asked. 

The woman, who was alarmed by his gruff manner, 
replied that they were lying in a place where 
people might tread upon them, and fearing that some 
one might be injured she was taking them where they 
would endanger no one. 

There are few so obscure that they can not, if they 
possess the right spirit, do some little act to benefit 
many others. 



THE COMMUNITY 211 

There are people who take no interest in public 
affairs and recognize no obligation out- The se ifi s h 
side the narrow range of their own private citizen 
concern. They seem to draw themselves into 
their shell and say: "I can take care of myself. 
Let others do the same." So long as they are com- 
fortable they take no steps to relieve the distress of 
those less fortunate; so long as they are healthy 
they contribute nothing to improve the sanitary con- 
ditions of their town; they recognize no social 
claims; they favor the cheapest schools, the cheapest 
public buildings, and, in fact, are unwilling to do 
anything to benefit the town in which they live and 
from which they derive their support. Such people 
may flatter themselves for being shrewd enough to reap 
the advantages without bearing the burdens of sociefy, 
but there is a penalty for this neglect of civic duty. 
It has been justly said: "This kind of self-interest is 
the seed of which meanness is the full grown-plant. 
Meanness is the sacrifice of the great social whole to 
the individual." 

Another kind of selfishness, and one that holds to 
a greater or less extent in every community, large or 
small, is that shown by one who, either for the money 
it brings or for the love of power over men, tries to 
absorb the chief emoluments of public office. This 
he does under the guise of a good citizen working for 
the common weal; and while some good may accrue 



212 LESSONS ON MORALS 

to the town or city in which he lives, he is to be 
recognized as no less self-seeking than the man who is 
altogether indifferent to community interests. 

One who seeks office for the sake of getting a good 
living in an easy way without the additional motive of 
rendering useful public service is a selfish and dis- 
honorable citizen. One who seeks office for the 
pleasure it brings in " running" things and in " wire- 
pulling" is using the larger interests of society to 
make them gratify his own personal vanity and sense 
of self-importance. 

We can hardly glance at a newspaper without 
Who makes noticing accounts of boys who have been 
the bad citizen? taken into court, and oftentimes sen- 
tenced to fine or imprisonment, for some violation of 
law or order. In every case the offence is brought 
about by failure to recognize the rights of others. 
Sometimes the offence is burglary, or petty theft of 
fruit or flowers or other things, and sometimes it 
seems to be the result of a spirit of deliberate wan- 
tonness or vandalism. Many boys seem to delight in 
breaking windows, injuring trees, defacing fences, 
marking public or even private buildings, tearing 
down hand-bills, derailing cars, and in a host of other 
misdeeds. This conduct is often called fun, but it is 
only a depraved mind that can enjoy fun of this 
nature. No excuse can be offered for behavior that 
sets at defiance all the obligations of good citizenship, 



THE COMMUNITY 213 

and he who acts thus is a public enemy, and doubtless 
will continue to be one, when in later years he may 
possibly hold the reins of power in community or 
state. 

As a man enjoys managing his own affairs skill- 
fully, keeping houses and lands in order, The reward of 
making comfortable and beautifying a good citizen- 
home, so on a larger scale will a good ship 
citizen find satisfaction in helping to manage the 
affairs of his own community and in contributing to its 
welfare in everyway. He will feel a genuine pride in 
good roads, fine public buildings, adequate sanitary 
conditions, well-equipped schools and libraries, and he 
will enjoy the intercourse sure to follow with other 
peaceful and law-abiding citizens. To a person of 
honest and generous public spirit, society with its 
claims and obligations brings a rounded activity, a 
broadening of sympathies, and an opportunity for the 
highest development of his powers. 

"Man in society is like a flower 
Blown in its native bud. ' Tis there alone 
His faculties, expanded in full bloom, 
Shine out; there only reach their proper use." 

— Cowper. 

QUESTIONS 

What is the highest duty of each individual in a community? 
Show how school is a community in miniature. 



214 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Mention some offences that come under the written laws. 
Mention some things that public opinion deals with. 
Describe a public-spirited person. 

How can the young fit themselves for service in the com- 
munity? 

What are some of the rewards of social service? 



The State 



Love of Country 
Political Duty 
Patriotic Days 

Treason 

America 



<^ 



u The great American principle is 
that the people rule " 



2IS 



LESSON XXII 

THE STATE 

We have spoken of the duties we owe to the family, 
the school, the community. But there is a still larger 
association of men to be considered. It is the 
grouping of great bodies of human beings according 
to their race or their country into nations or states. 
These may include millions of people living under 
one common law, enjoying the benefits of the same 
government and bound together by the same duties 
to it. The word state as used in this connection 
means not only a particular division of a country 
like New York or Massachusetts, but the nation, as 
the United States, Russia, France, or any great con- 
federation of human beings for political ends. It 
usually means an association of great numbers of 
people in one particular land, as the French in 
France, the Italians in Italy. In our own country, 
although there are many races, we are still one people 
or one state, living under one government. 

The state grew out of the family, and just as in 
the family, the school, the community, there are 
mutual rights, so in the state it is impossible to live in 
peace and happiness unless the mutual rights of life 

217 



2 15 LESSONS ON MORALS 

and liberty are respected. It is the business of the 
state to point out and to enforce these rights and 
duties, which are called laws. 

As it is natural to love our home, so it is natural 

to love our country. Our country, like 
Love of . . . \ .11-11 

country our home, is bound up with all the ex- 
periences of life which serve to attach 
us to o;ir native land with an affection so broad and 
deep and strong that it seems to transcend all other 
love and to reach out and include the very soil. It 
is said that a native of one of the Asiatic isles, amid the 
splendors of Paris, beholding a banana-tree in the 
Garden of Plants, wept and seemed for a moment to 
be transported to his own land. The Ethiopian 
imagines that God made his sands and deserts and 
that only angels were employed in forming the rest 
of the world; and the Maltese, living on a sea-girt 
rock, call their island the " Flower of the World." 

"Man, through all ages of revolving time, 
Unchanging man, in every varying clime, 

Deems his own land of every land the pride, 
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside; 

His home the spot of earth supremely blest, 
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest." 

But it is not merely natural to love our country; it 
is reasonable and right; it is an obligation. To it 
we owe all that makes life desirable or even possible. 
Our debt of gratitude is so great that our country has 



THE STATE 219 

a claim to anything we can give. In time of danger 
from a foreign foe or from civil war it is the plainest 
and foremost duty for citizens to take up arms in her 
defence, which means a defence of all we hold most 
dear — family, home, property, the opportunity for 
education, the stability of all great institutions, the 
blessings of peace, high principles, and inspiring 
ideas of human brotherhood. Be it said to the honor 
and glory of our own country and of others that 
in time of need men have not hesitated in 
showing patriotic devotion. They have even wel- 
comed death for country rather than life without 
it. Especially ought Americans to love their country, 
since our liberty and all the blessings we now 
enjoy have been bought at a great price. No 
nation has had greater heroes to toil for it, to 
suffer and die for it. It is because there have been 
men who loved their country better than themselves 
that we have a country to love! 

In time of war we show our patriotism by defend- 
ing our native land. In time of peace 

, , . . Political 

we show our love by doing our part in duty 

making it the abode of justice, so that 
when dissensions arise at home or abroad there 
may be the best possible conditions for averting 
war. This is a duty as binding upon each citizen 
and as important to the welfare of the state as 
taking up arms in its defence. The great Ameri- 



220 LESSONS ON MORALS 

can principle is that the people rule. Lincoln said 
that our government is "of the people, by the people, 
for the people." Every citizen of the United States 
is a ruler. Every native-born man twenty-one years 
old has a right to vote for other men who shall 
represent him in the work of making and ad- 
ministering the laws. This power brings with it 
a duty to every voter to exercise his right for the 
best good of all. 

In order to fulfill this duty, each voter should 
inform himself in the history of his country and in 
the broader principles of politics, to fit him to judge 
of special issues of public policy as they arise. He 
should not be willing to take his opinions from a 
partisan newspaper, nor from men of his party, 
nor from men who have influence and power, but he 
should read books on special topics in question, writ- 
ten by competent non-partisans, so that he may be 
able to form an opinion for himself. The intelligent 
citizen who knows for whom he is voting and why he 
is voting is the mainstay of the republic. The illit- 
erate voter is the greatest danger to a free country. 
Having formed an intelligent opinion on political 
matters, every citizen should do his part in creating 
a sound public opinion. He can do this by taking 
an interest in politics — not by a selfish scramble for 
office, but by standing up for what he believes to be 
right and by opposing wrong measures. Every citi- 



THE STATE 221 

zen should use his prerogative of free speech when 
he thinks that good can be accomplished by it. 

As this government is " by the people/' every 
man is responsible, at least to the extent of one 
vote, for the election of honest officials. There- 
fore it is the plainest moral duty for every man to 
vote. If for any reason — indifference, contempt, 
absorption in business or pleasure — he stays away 
from the polls on election day, he fails in his duty to 
his country. 

Many men shrink from accepting public office 
because of the criticism it brings, or because it takes 
time from their own private interests, or because of 
their disapproval of political methods. While, as a 
rule, office should not be sought by the private citi- 
zen, when his fellow-citizens call upon him to repre- 
sent them in city government, in State legislature, 
or in Congress, he should respond to the call, if 
possible. " To do and bear whatever is necessary 
to maintain that organization of life which the 
state represents is the imperative duty of every 
citizen.' ' 

In view of the fact that we in America owe our 
liberty and all the blessings that sur- 

1 mi ^ r ^ Patriotic 

round us to men who toiled and fought da 

and died for their country, it is fitting 
that certain days be set aside to honor their memory, 
and to keep the fire of patriotism burning in our hearts, 



222 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Sometimes in our anticipation and enjoyment of a holi- 
day we forget its import. When the bells are ringing 
and the cannon firing on the Fourth of July we should 
not think merely of the noise and fun. We should 
at least give a thought of gratitude to those who on 
that day agreed that they would risk their lives and 
everything dear to them in order that their country 
might be free. 

" Our country first, their glory and their pride." 

On the day that perpetuates the memory of Wash- 
ington we may well take time to reflect upon the 
character and the deeds of so great a man — " who 
spent his life in establishing the independence, the 
glory, the durable prosperity of his country; who 
succeeded in all he undertook, and whose successes 
were never won at the expense of honor, justice, 
integrity, or by the sacrifice of a single principle." 
Throughout the world his name stands for nobility, 
courage, wisdom and patriotism. Of him Edward 
Everett thus eloquently spoke: 

" Tell me, ye who make your pious pilgrimage to 
the shades of Vernon, is Washington indeed shut up 
in that cold and narrow home? The hand that traced 
the Charter of Independence is indeed motionless ; 
the eloquent lips that sustained it are hushed; but 
the lofty spirits that conceived, resolved, matured, 
maintained it, and which alone, to such men, make it 
life to live — these can not expire. 



THE STATE 223 

" These shall resist the empire of decay, 
When time is o'er, and worlds have passed away ; 
Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, 
But that which warmed it once can never die." 

Memorial Day, now too often observed with little 
reference to its sad meaning, should be held almost 
a solemn day, commemorating as it does the sacri- 
fice of so many lives in the preservation of the union 
of our States. If we can not realize the heroism dis- 
played in the Civil War and the sorrow caused by it, 
we should respect the feelings of those who still 
mourn the loss of friends who gave their lives in 
that great struggle, and refrain from turning the day 
into merriment. 

When on the 30th of May the veterans of the 
Grand Army of the Republic march through the 
streets on their way to place their offering of flowers 
upon the graves of the honored dead, sometimes 
bearing the tattered flag which they carried through 
the smoke of battle, our hearts ought to thrill at the 
sight of the flag, the emblem of our country, and we 
ought to be inspired to feel that if the time ever 
comes when our country needs our service, we too, 
like those war-stained men, will follow the flag to 
save the state. 

" Wake in our breasts the living fires, 
The holy faith that warmed our sires; 
Thy hand hath made our Nation free; 
To die for her is serving Thee." 



224 LESSONS ON MORALS 

We have all read of Benedict Arnold, the traitor. 
We know how false he was to Washing- 
ton, who trusted him as a friend; and 
although when about to die he bitterly repented of 
the wrong he had done and asked that he might be 
buried in the American uniform, saying: "God 
forgive me for ever putting on any other!" still we 
despise his memory. We also think of Lincoln's 
assassinator with a feeling approaching hatred, and 
believe that an ignominious death and an unknown 
grave were richly merited by him. The detestation 
in which we hold the man who proves recreant to his 
country corresponds in intensity to our patriotism. 
If hatred is ever justifiable toward any one it is 
justifiable toward a traitor, who is the most despicable 
man in the state, for he takes advantage of the protec- 
tion it gives him and the confidence it reposes in him 
to betray it to its foes. 

In time of war treason is shown by giving informa- 
tion to the enemy, or by surrendering forts, ships, or 
ammunition and supplies into his hands; the incen- 
tive is usually jealousy or revenge, or personal 
advancement or pecuniary gain. In time of peace 
the spirit of treason is shown in many different ways. 
When a man considers his own or his friends' or his 
party's interests paramount to those of his country, 
when he sells his own vote or buys another's, when he 
votes for an appropriation of money so that he or his 



THE STATE 225 

friends may profit by it pecuniarily, when he evades 
the payment of just taxes, when he allows bad men to 
be put into office and bad measures to become laws 
without doing all in his power to prevent it, he is a 
traitor. 

" What, then, shall that name America mean and 

stand for among men as a word desig- 

America 
nating our country and people, and what 

qualities in manhood and womanhood shall the word 
American represent; what traits in political character, 
in trade, in commerce, in manufactures, in thought, 
in morals, in religious spirit and conduct? For be 
sure of this, the personal and national qualities which 
the word American shall stand for in the minds of 
men throughout the whole world, and throughout all 
future time are the very qualities which the American 
people themselves shall possess. May heaven grant 
that this mighty people to which we belong may grow 
to be a people so wise, so true, so high-minded, so 
pure-hearted, so morally courageous, so strong in self- 
restraint and in civic virtue, so profoundly and 
magnanimously religious, and efficient in all things 
that go to make the best of this world and all worlds, 
that the great word American which describes that 
people shall stand in all the coming ages as a word 
freighted with the noblest personal and national 
meaning, and as carrying perpetual inspiration and 



226 LESSONS ON MORALS 

uplifting power to all the toiling, downcast and suffer- 
ing races of mankind over the face of the whole 
earth." — Moses Coit Tyler. 

"Self first, personal friends second, party third, 
and country fourth is the order of consideration in the 
mind of the office-seeker, the wire-puller, the corrupt 
politician. Country first, party second, friends third, 
self last, is the order in. the mind of the true citizen, 
the courageous statesman, the unselfish patriot. " 
— Hyde. 

"Are you so wise, pray, as to have missed the dis- 
covery that above your mother and father, and all 
your other ancestors, your country should be held in 
honor and reverence and holy awe, and is so held in 
the eyes of the gods and of all reasonable men ; that 
you must revere her, and submit yourself to her, and 
soothe her in her anger, more than if it were your 
father; that you must either induce her by persuasion 
to reverse her judgment, or else do whatever she 
commands; that you must suffer without resistance 
if she assigns to you suffering; and if she orders you 
to be scourged, or imprisoned, or leads you into 
battle, there to be wounded or killed, that all this is 
right, and must be done; that we must never give 
way, nor retreat, nor leave the ranks, but whether in 
battle, or in a court of justice, or anywhere else, we 



THE STATE 227 

must either do what our city and our country com- 
mand, or else convince them of the true nature of 
justice? For it is impious to offer violence to your 
father or your mother ; how much more, then, to your 
country. — Socrates in his dialogtie with Crito. 

QUESTIONS 

Why should American youth be patriotic? 

Mention some of the advantages enjoyed under 01 r own 
government. 

What duties rest upon the citizen for all these advantages? 

What principle controls the bad citizen? 

Discuss public spirit. 

Read The Prese?it Crisis, The Biglow Papers, The Com- 
memoration Ode y by Lowell; Thou, too, Sail on, O Ship of 
State, by Longfellow; The Flower of Liberty, by Holmes; 
Lincoln's Address at Gettysburg; Orations of Webster, 
Everett, Winthrop, Curtis. 



Self Culture 
mi 

Education 

Self Respect 

Self Reliance 

Self Control 

Presence of Mind 

Pleasure 

Character 

8* 



"Everywhere in life the true question is, 
not what we gain, but what we do " 



229 



LESSON XXIII 



SELF CULTURE 



Thus far we have considered our relations to 
things, to people, and to the various institutions of 
society. In all these considerations self has been 
constantly implied, but possibly, in our study of prin- 
ciples of right and wrong, we have failed to observe 
how those elements of conduct called virtues, if 
carried into practice, react upon us and lead to that 
development and fulfillment of ourselves which we 
have indicated by the rewards or results of doing 
right. In summing up these lessons we shall not note 
each particular reaction, but shall consider some of 
the broader and more comprehensive duties that we 
owe to ourselves if we would realize our highest 
capacities and promote as we ought the welfare of 
the individual and of society. 

The fundamental duty that each one owes to him- 
self is to make the most of his faculties, 
to become as large and as helpful a 
part of the world in which he lives as it is in his 
power to become. While it is true that one may 
have greater natural capacity and more favorable 
opportunities for development than another, the 

231 



232 LESSONS ON MORALS 

dullest mind, under any circumstances, if normally 
constituted, is capable of growth. If we bring the 
talents with which we are naturally endowed, be they 
one or ten, into the best possible relations with the 
material out of which our life is to be developed, we 
can do no more. We shall then live up to our 
highest standard and do our highest duty to ourselves. 
Kant says: "The aim of education is to give the 
individual all the perfection of which he is susceptible." 
Education, then, becomes the first duty we owe to 
ourselves. But we must not understand education as 
meaning simply what we get from books or the 
school. Graduation from school, college, or univer- 
sity is a good preparation for beginning that broader 
education that should continue through life. The 
student who called upon one of his teachers and told 
him he was leaving the university because he had 
"finished his education'' was aptly rebuked by the 
remark of the professor: "Indeed! I am only be- 
ginning mine." Gibbon says: "Every person has 
two educations — one which he receives from others, 
and one, more important, which he gives to himself." 
Our own active effort is the essential thing, and no 
facilities, no books, no teachers, no lessons learned by 
rote will justify us in dispensing with self-education. 
Schiller spoke truly when he said: "Education con- 
sists in action, conduct, self-culture, self-control, and 
all that tends to discipline a man and fit him for the 



SELF CULTURE 233 

proper performance of the duties and business of 
life." Channing expresses a similar idea when he 
says: "The true end of education is to unfold and 
direct aright our whole nature. Its office is to call 
forth powers of every kind — power of thought, 
affection, will, and outward action ; power to observe, 
to reason, to judge, to contrive; power to adopt good 
ends firmly and to pursue them effectively; power to 
govern ourselves and to influence others; power to 
gain and to spread happiness." 

Education has been called a three-sided thing, or 
the harmonious development of body, mind, and soul. 
Our duty is to bring each side to its fullest develop- 
ment, so as to make their union into self as perfect 
and as complete as possible. 

We all know how a wise and good parent tries to 

throw around his child every opportunity 

r r . . , . , , . Self-respect 

tor furthering his development into a 

noble man. This desire of the parent to secure 
the highest good of his child affords perhaps the 
best illustration of the feeling each one should 
have toward himself. Pythagoras enjoined rever- 
ence of self on his pupil. Nothing else will 
stimulate us to make the effort necessary to attain 
perfection. A just sense of our own worth and 
worthiness is the only incentive that will spur us 
on to persistent and life-long endeavor in that duty 
of all duties — to make the most of ourselves. 



234 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Actuated by self-respect we shall not do that which 
degrades mind or body. This virtue is at the root of 
all the virtues. It is the standard by which we judge 
our own conduct or that of others. We continually 
find ourselves saying: "I could not do that and main- 
tain my self-respect. " "The pious and just honoring 
of ourselves/' said Milton, "is the fountain-head from 
whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues 
forth." True self-respect does not overestimate 
self nor exclude respect for others. It rather leads 
to a recognition of their rights, because the one who 
respects himself demands the recognition of his own 
rights, and in this way realizes what are his duties to 
others. True self-respect challenges the respect of 
others, for as the thoughts are so will the acts be. 
One cannot live a high life and think meanly of him- 
self. He cannot aspire if he looks down. 

A boy was once importuned by another to do a 
wrong act. To the plea, "Nobody will see you," he 
replied: "I shall see myself." 

The poet Goethe, in a conversation with a friend, 
once remarked that he thought English- 
men seemed to have a great advantage 
over most other men. "I should not like to affirm, " 
replied his friend, "that the English gentlemen here 
in Weimar are cleverer, better educated, or better- 
hearted than our own young men." "That is not the 
point," said Goethe; "their superiority does not lie in 



SELF CULTURE 235 

such things; neither does it lie in their birth and 
fortune; it lies precisely in their having the courage 
to be what nature made them. There is no halfness 
about them. They are complete men. Sometimes 
complete fools also, but even that is something, and 
has its weight. " 

Goethe's opinion was something like that of Les- 
sing, who in giving advice to young men said : "Think 
wrongly, if you please, but think for yourself." In 
the education of self one of the most important 
things we have to learn is that we have a per- 
sonality. It is not every one who can truthfully say: 
"I am I. I am not another person, but I am myself." 
As Dr. Munger says: " There are many who do not 
get themselves detached from the mass of humanity, 
but live and act out of the common stock of thought 
and feeling. To have a separate identity, to have 
opinions and to maintain them, is something both 
necessary and difficult, because one should give due 
heed to the views of others and at the same time steer 
clear of that most disagreeable trait — conceit. The 
two extremes — to have no opinions, or to have many 
by which all questions are settled — must have a 
happy mean. In order to pursue a middle course in 
this matter, tact, good taste, modesty, are required to 
direct in making or withholding an expression of 
opinion. But if choice must be made of two evils, 
although self-conceit is odious, an excess of opinions, 



236 LESSONS ON MORALS 

at least in the young, is better than none at all. The 
opinionated boy or girl is much more likely to make 
a substantial man or woman than the child whose 
mind is swayed by every influence. " The least 
efficient creatures in the world are the men and 
women who neither believe nor disbelieve. You 
can not afford to belong to that class. Whether you 
believe or disbelieve, be stalwart in your convictions 
and act them out honestly and unambiguously. By 
so doing you will at least be saved from the moral 
inefficiency engendered by half-heartedness, ,, 

It is well for children to learn that success comes 
only to those who strive to win it. " Heaven helps 
those who help themselves." One who does not think 
or plan for himself, but depends upon others to help 
him along the journey of life, will find that success 
does not come until he has planted himself upon his 
own powers and begun to work from them. He may 
have money and friends, but that which underlies 
achievement is himself and his own effort. Sir 
Fowell Buxton said : "The longer I live the more am 
I convinced that the great difference between men, 
between the feeble and the powerful, the great and 
the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination; 
and no talent, no circumstances, no opportunities will 
make a two-legged creature a man without it." In the 
Civil War this trait made General Grant conqueror. 
His historian says: " He was never averse to availing 



SELF CULTURE 237 

himself of the ideas of others, but the suggestions of 

others were accepted or rejected as his judgment 

dictated; he was never persuaded. And if he took 

up an idea that he found, it was so developed by his 

own mind that it became as original, in reality, as if 

he had conceived the germ." 

Whenever we do anything that needs our closest 

attention, or whenever we do what we 

a- n a • • -ii \mu Self-control 

dislike doing, we exercise our will. When 

learning to play the piano we have first to attend 
very strictly to the mechanical part of the work, and 
sometimes it seems difficult and tiresome and we are 
inclined to give it up. But by an exercise of the will 
we resist the inclination, summon patience and per- 
severance to our aid, master the difficulties, and in 
time come to do automatically and to like to do 
what was once a trying and tedious task. This 
mastery of will over self is called self-control and 
is necessary to obedience to the laws of conduct. 
Self-control is that element of self-education that 
enables us to do right even when the opposite 
course seems at the moment the more to be de- 
sired. If, in the beginning, we find it difficult 
to direct our will aright, as the skilled pianist be- 
comes unconscious of the mechanics of his art, 
so, if we persevere, will right-doing sink into un- 
conscious habit, and become, as it is called, "second 
nature." This second nature takes the place of the 



238 LESSONS ON MORALS 

former untrained and undisciplined nature, until at 
last — 

" It is as easy for the heart to be true 
As grass to be green, or skies to be blue; 
'Tis the natural way of living." 

We need to practise self-control until the self is 
changed for the better. Then when it is changed in 
any way, and a firm habit formed, the work of self- 
control is over in that particular direction. A person 
with a hasty temper finds it hard to control himself 
at first, but after long resistance to his natural im- 
pulse, his temper should, so to speak, restrain itself. 

A good school furnishes excellent opportunity for 
the cultivation of self-control. Dr. John Dewey 
says: " Every act of attention on the part of the 
pupil; every concentration on study that excludes 
distracting stimuli; every physical restraint, as 
sitting quietly when necessary; every form of physical 
control, as when guiding the pen in writing; every 
subordination of present pleasure to future satisfac- 
tion, requires the same activity of will that moral 
conduct requires, and results in moral training 
through the formation of habits." It has been 
previously stated that every school exercise or require- 
ment is moral in its tendency, so far as it trains the 
will in making choice of the right and consequently 
in leading to the doing of the right. A knowledge of 
the moral law, so far as one can know it, coupled 



SELF CULTURE 239 

with a desire to conform to it, and the power to 
control such a desire, constitute conscientiousness." 
" Conscientiousness," says President Hyde, "is the 
form which all the virtues take when viewed as 
determination of the self. It is the assertion of the 
ideal of the self in its every act." 

It is said that Washington possessed such com- 
mand over himself, even in moments of great difficulty 
and danger, as to convey the impression to those who 
did not know him intimately that he was a man of 
inborn calmness. Yet he was by nature ardent and 
impetuous. His mildness, gentleness, politeness and 
consideration for others were the result of a rigid 
self-control and unwearied self-discipline which he 
diligently practised even from his boyhood. 

Tyndall says of Faraday: "Underneath his sweet- 
ness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano." 

" Real glory 
Springs from the silent conquest of ourselves, 
And without that the conqueror is naught 
But the first slave." 

Self-control shows itself in time of emergency or 
danger and is sometimes called self- 
possession, or presence of mind. It is resence of 
an important element of true courage. 
It has often been the means of averting disaster. A 
man who finds his business in unexpected complica- 
tions often steers clear of bankruptcy by keeping a 



240 LESSONS ON MORALS 

cool head. In accident or peril many a life is saved 
by presence of mind. When one of a party in a 
small boat changed her position the boat shipped 
water a little. The other occupants of the boat were 
frightened and sprang to the opposite side, upsetting 
the boat and drowning several of the party. Presence 
of mind would have prevented this catastrophe. 

A noted Englishman (Lord M ), his wife and 

brother were sailing one moonlight evening on the 
Lake of Geneva. One of the three pulling on a hal- 
yard slipped it out of the block. The Earl's brother 
climbed up the mast to adjust the rope, and his 
weight capsized the boat. In a moment all were in 
the water, and the brother became entangled in the 

sail. " Don't be afraid," said Lady M ; "I won't 

take hold of you, but tell me what to do." The 
brother having freed himself came up, and the calm 
woman, putting a hand on the shoulder of each, was 
upheld by the men for a quarter of an hour. Then 
a man rowing that way came to their relief. The 
lady was taken into his boat, and the two men clung 
to its stern, while the rescuer rowed to the shore, a 
quarter of a mile distant. Mastery over self, or cool 
courage, probably saved their lives. 

If we could live up to the highest ideal of life, per- 
manent pleasure and happiness would 
Pleasure 

result. Pleasure in the true sense is to 

be welcomed as a sign of health and activity. Under 



SELF CULTURE 241 

certain conditions the more pleasure we have, the 
better; but there is danger when we seek it for its 
own sake. The secret of pleasure is that it is found 
in something else, not in itself. If we play a game 
or take a drive or attend a party and continually 
wonder if we are having a good time we are apt to be 
bored and miserable. It is only when we forget our- 
selves and our pleasures and become absorbed in 
something outside ourselves that we have the greatest 
enjoyment. The direct pursuit of pleasure is harm- 
ful, because it leads us to judge of things by the way 
they affect our personal feelings, which is a very shal- 
low and selfish criterion; and it brings so many dis- 
appointments that one gets into the habit of flitting 
from one thing to another, hoping that if this does 
not please something else will. Thus life becomes a 
haphazard development of this or that side of our 
nature when it should be the harmonious develop- 
ment of our whole being. 

Pleasure in excess vitiates the whole nature The 
maxim, 'all work and no play make Jack a dull boy/ 
if reversed would make him something infinitely 
worse. Nothing can be more harmful to the young 
than to be given over to the pursuit of pleasure. 
The best qualities of the mind are thus frittered 
away; common enjoyments become tasteless; appe- 
tite for the highest kind of pleasure is destroyed; 
and when in later years the duties and work of life 



242 LESSONS ON MORALS 

come there is no strength of purpose or moral cour- 
age to undertake them." 

George Eliot represents Romola as replying to the 
boy who says, "I should like to be something that 
would make me a great man, and very happy besides 
— something that would not hinder me from having 
a great deal of pleasure" : "That is not easy, my 
Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that could 
ever come by caring very much about our own nar- 
row pleasures. We can only have the highest hap- 
piness, such as goes along with being a great man, by 
having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest 
of the world as well as for ourselves; and this sort of 
happiness often brings so much pain with it that we 
can only tell it from pain by its being what we would 
choose before everything else, because our souls see 
it is good. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act 
nobly, and seek to know the best things God has put 
within the reach of men, you must learn to fix your 
mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you 
because of it. And, remember, if you were to choose 
something lower, and make it the rule of your life to 
seek your own pleasure and escape from what is dis- 
agreeable, calamity might come, just the same; and it 
would be a calamity falling on a base mind, which is 
the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and 
that may well make a man say — 'It would have been 
better for me if I had never been born. ,,: 



SELF CULTURE 243 

The one great duty, including within it all other 

duties, is to strive after character; to 

Ch13.r3.ct6r 
take the self and make of it what it was 

intended to be, to bring it to the highest perfection of 
which it is capable. Character has been defined as the 
form in which the results of virtuous conduct are pre- 
served. It is whatever of good we have accumulated 
and stored up from all the experiences of life, what- 
ever makes us morally strong and self-contained and 
able to stand alone, if needs be against the wrong. 
It is impossible and undesirable to trace out in our 
own mind the result of each act. Constant self- 
analysis tends to keep the mind in a state of inde- 
cision and unrest ; it also tends to priggishness. But 
if we know what is right, so far as we can see, and 
that to do it will strengthen in ourselves the power to 
do it again, we have considered all that we need to 
consider. We must remember that for many thou- 
sands of years people have been learning from their 
varied experiences how to live. The outcome of this 
knowledge has been solidified into the common moral 
rules of truthfulness, honesty, and all the other vir- 
tues and their opposite vices. In the main, principles 
of right and wrong are fixed, and it is safe to measure 
our conduct by standards already set up. We must, 
of course, consider special duties that arise as condi- 
tions of life change and increase in complexity. The 
forming of character is a never-ending process. 



244 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Dr. M unger truly says: " The question of ques- 
tions for us is how to foster its growth, how 
to supply it with motive power, how to enrich 
and ennoble it, how to carry it along from one 
period of life to another, so that it shall not stop 
by the way. 

"The only conceivable thing that can be named as 
the object or end of life is character, for the simple 
reason that it is the only thing that lasts. In other 
words, the only rational object we can set before 
us is to take this self, made up of mind and heart 
and will, and train it in the line of its creative design, 
bring out all its powers, train it away from all its 
faults and defects, make it strong and compact and 
substantial — a real thing, harmonious, true, the very 
thing it was designed to be. Then we have some- 
thing that lasts, something that does not dissolve 
under the touch of time and death. " 

"The practical man carries with him his ethical 
principles. He does not stop to reason out the rela- 
tion of duty and virtue to reward, or of temptation 
and vice to penalty before he decides to help the 
unfortunate, or to be faithful to a friend, or to vote on 
election day. This trained, habitual will, causing 
acts to be performed in conformity to duty and virtue, 
yet without conscious reference to the explicit prin- 
ciples that underlie them, is character. 



SELF CULTURE 245 

" What, then, is the use of studying at such length 
the temptations and duties, the virtues and vices, with 
their rewards and penalties, if all these things are to 
be forgotten and ignored when the occasions for 
practical action arrive? 

"The particular rules and principles are not con- 
sciously present in each act of the finished writer or 
musician, neither are they entirely absent. When 
the master of these arts makes a mistake he recognizes 
it instantly and corrects it, or endeavors to avoid its 
repetition. This shows that the rule is not lost. 
But it has come to be a part of the mind itself. As 
long as the mind works in conformity with the prin- 
ciple it is not distinctly recognized because there is 
no need for recognition. The principle comes to 
consciousness only as a power to check or restrain 
acts that are at variance with it. 

"Day by day we are turning over more and more 
of our lives to this domain of character. Hence it is 
of the utmost importance to allow nothing to enter 
this almost irrevocable state of unconscious, habitual 
character that has not received the approval of 
conscience, the sanction of duty, and the stamp of 
virtue. Character once formed in a wrong direction 
may be corrected. But it can be done only with the 
greatest difficulty, and by a process as hard to resolve 
upon as the amputation of a limb or the plucking out 
of an eye." — Hyde. 



246 LESSONS ON MORALS 

" It is in making endless additions to itself, in the 
endless expansion of its powers, in endless growth in 
wisdom and beauty that the spirit of the human race 
finds its ideals." — Matthew Arnold. 

QUESTIONS 

When do we attain the highest development of which we are 
capable? 

What is the special use of a good school-education? 

Discuss the virtue of self-respect. 

How may we acquire a habit of self-control? 

Give an illustration of self-reliance. Why is it a necessary 
element of character? 

What is character? 

When is a person conscientious ? 

How far is it right to pursue pleasure ? 



Nature 



m 



Appreciation of Nature 



Cultivation of a Love for Nature 



Obtuseness 



£0 



'-Nature forces o?t our heart a Creator; 
a history; a Providence" 



247 



LESSON XXIV 

NATURE 

If we rightly open our minds to the influences 
that surround us, there is nothing in the universe 
that does not furnish its lesson. From every person, 
every event, every relation and experience, we may 
gather something that will enrich our lives. Among 
these influences Nature holds first place. Science 
tells us there is reason to believe that man issued 
from Nature by a long process of development. It is 
certain that physically and mentally man's life is so 
bound up with the life of Nature that the two are in- 
separable. Nature sustains his body, shelters him 
in his home, furnishes fabrics for his clothing and 
" turns the wheel which fashions them into things of 
beauty and of use." Art takes Nature for its model; 
in her science discovers its truths; and from contact 
with her in the tilling of the soil, the first sign of 
civilization, arise the virtues of patience, perseverance, 
self-denial, self-restraint, endurance, and a will to work, 
which lie at the foundation of all human progress. To 
the seeing eye and the understanding heart Nature is 
full of wonder and charm, and, explain it as we 
may, the contemplation of her grandeur, majesty, or 

249 



250 LESSONS ON MORALS 

beauty as seen in earth, sky and sea, touches the dull- 
est mind. That great interpreter of Nature, Ruskin, 
says: " There are few who do not receive, and know- 
that they receive, at certain moments strength of 
some kind, or rebuke, from the appealings of outward 
things; and that it is not possible for one to walk 
across so much as a rood of the natural earth, 
with mind unagitated and rightly poised, without 
receiving strength and hope from some stone, flower, 
leaf or sound, nor without a sense of a dew falling 
upon him out of the sky." 

" To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." 

The wonderland of nature is open to every one who 
Appreciation is willing to give eye and mind to the 

of Nature training of observation. If we form the 
habit of observing, the world steadily widens and 
grows in wonder and mystery until it becomes not 
only an intimate friend but a constant source of sur- 
prise and delight, an ever new and inexhaustible 
resource. It is possible to cultivate the love of 
Nature. We can place ourselves in contact with her 
most impressive aspects. We can stroll through the 
silent woods, seek out the haunts of animals that 
dwell there, listen to the whispers of the forest leaves 
and the music of the waters and the songs of birds, 
bask in the sunshine, watch the clouds, behold the 
glories of a sunset and gaze into the starry skies. If 



NATURE 251 

we keep close to Nature she will draw near to 
us and reveal to us more and more of her 
hidden meaning. The more sensitive we become 
to her influences the more we can realize their 
wonderful power. The moment we begin to deal 
with her directly a powerful influence begins to play 
upon us. 

" We grow into the likeness of Nature if we love her. 
We are what suns and winds and waters make us. 
The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills 
Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles." 

There is in Nature an uplifting and purifying power 
which we can feel better than describe. The silent 
awe of thick woods and deep glens, the majesty of 
mountains, the beauty of fields and flowers, of radiant 
slopes or stretches of forest tinged with living green 
or blazing with the gorgeous colors of autumn, exert 
an inexpressibly elevating and refining influence upon 
character. 

We turn again to Ruskin to verify the statement: 
"The love of Nature is an invariable sign of goodness 
of heart, and justice of moral perception; in propor- 
tion to the degree in which it is felt will probably be 
the degree in which all nobleness and beauty of 
character will also be felt; when it is originally 
absent from any mind, that mind is in many other 
respects hard, worldly, and degraded; and where, 
having been originally present, it is repressed by art 



252 LESSONS ON MORALS 

or education, that repression appears to be detri- 
mental to the person suffering it." 

The poet alone gives perfect expression to this 
thought : 

" Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege 
Through all the years of this our life to lead 
From joy to joy; for she can so inform 
The mind that is within us, so impress 
With quietness and beauty, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor ail 
The dreary intercourse of daily life 
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
Is full of blessing, 

''Therefore am I still 
A lover of the meadows and the woods 
And mountains; and of all that we behold 
Of this green earth; well pleased to recognize 
In Nature and the language of the sense 
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, 
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul, 
Of all my moral being." 

— Wordsworth, 

When we neglect to open our hearts to Nature, 

obtuseness comes. We may be so en- 
Obtuseness . . _. . _ _ 

gaged in our studies or in our work that 

we seem to have no time for the contemplation of 



NATURE 253 

Nature; but education without it has no stable foun- 
dation, and a life devoted to work alone, without the 
lifting up and the lighting up that Nature gives, is 
indeed dull and dreary. It is said that one who is 
blinded to Nature has "his eyes sealed to vulgar 
selfishness, and his intelligence crushed by impious 
care." William DeWitt Hyde, in speaking of the 
penalty consequent upon a lack of appreciation of 
Nature, says: "Some one asks, 'What is the use of 
spending your time with the birds among the trees 
or on the hill-top under the stars?' and we cannot 
give him an answer in dollars and cents. But the 
life of man can be no deeper and richer than the ob- 
jects and thoughts on which it feeds. Without 
appreciation and love for Nature we can eat and 
drink and sleep and do our work. The horse and ox 
can do as much. Obtuseness to the beauty and 
meaning of Nature sinks us to the level of the brute. 
Cut off from the springs of inspiration, our lives 
stagnate, our souls shrivel, our sensibilities wither. 
And just as stagnant water becomes impure and 
swarms with low forms of vegetable and animal life, 
so the stagnant soul which refuses to reflect the 
beauty of sun and star and sky soon becomes polluted 
with sordidness and selfishness." 

"The four great branches of culture — religion, 
science, art, and literature — all take their root in the 



254 LESSONS ON MORALS 

love of Nature; hence the necessity of stimulating at 
the first this fundamental root, if there is to be any 
real depth in any of the branches." — G. Stanley Hall. 

"The slowly and painfully acquired patience, en- 
durance, and self-surrender which have accompanied 
the gradual mastery of natural phenomena by man 
forms the moral foundation upon which society 
ultimately rests; it is not a complete moral education, 
but it has made such an education possible; and it 
has become so much a part of man's soul and life 
that it binds him to Nature not through his senses 
only, or through his imagination alone, but by means 
of that which is deepest and most enduring in him- 
self. The fellowship of the race with Nature survives 
in each individual in that moral inheritance which 
is the most precious bequest which we have received 
from the toiling, suffering, enduring past." — Hamil- 
ton Wright Mabie* 

"To him who in the love of Nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings with a mild 
And healing sympathy that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware." 

— Bryant. 



NATURE 255 

QUESTIONS 

How does Nature teach us a lesson in patience? 
How can we learn to appreciate Nature? 
What effect has the study of Nature upon character? 
Repeat the quotation from Wordsworth. 
Read Wordsworth, Ruskin ; also Hamilton W. Mabie's 
Nature a,7id Culture and Under the Trees and Elsewhere. 



Art 



Beauty 

Pleasure a Legitimate Aim of Art 

How to Cultivate a Love 
for the Beautiful 

Effect of Ugliness 

Vulgarity 

Refinement 

9m 



11 Greater completion marks the progress of art, 
absolute completion usually its decline'' 1 



257 



LESSON XXV 

ART 

Nature rarely exhibits her perfection in a com- 
bined whole. If we subject any natural object to 
close scrutiny we seldom find it faultless in all its 
parts. A tree with gnarled and misshapen trunk and 
branches may have most beautiful foliage. The 
human face rarely shows perfection in every feature. 
Few flowers conform to the perfect type. Nature 
throws out hints, as it were, of perfection in one part 
or another, and art, making choice of these parts, 
combines and creates a perfect type. Art has its 
origin deep in a human want. The heart and the 
imagination demand gratification, and both seek for 
more than they can ever obtain. This aspiration, 
this unfulfilled wish, constitutes the ideal that true 
art ever seeks to embody. Art elevates our ideals 
and helps us to a realization of them that we cannot 
attain without it. Poetry discovers and expresses 
for us thoughts and feelings and ideas that we could 
not discover or express for ourselves. Painting 
reveals to us hidden effects that we ourselves can not 
see in Nature. Sculpture shows, through perfection 
of form, a more perfect type of character than our 

259 



260 LESSONS ON MORALS 

own unaided imagination can conceive. A divine 
grace and radiance seem to shine forth from the 
"Venus of Melos," and- when near it one can feel 
himself in the presence of a charming, dignified, sweet 
personality. Music takes us beyond the realm of 
words or color or form, and we transcend our ordinary 
thought and feeling and are carried into another 
world. "All inmost things,'' says Carlyle, "are 
melodious; naturally utter themselves in song. The 
meaning of song goes deep. See deep enough, and 
you see musically; the heart of Nature being every- 
where music if you can only reach it. All deepest 
thoughts instinctively vent themselves in song." 
Pater says: "The base of all artistic genius is the 
power of conceiving humanity in a new, striking, 
rejoicing way — of putting a happy world of its own 
creation in place of the meaner world of common 
days." 

Beauty has been defined as the perfect embodiment 
of a perfect idea, when regarded as to its 
form alone. The perfect idea is truth. 
It is evident, then, that truth and beauty are so closely 
associated in art as hardly to admit of separation in 
thought. The true and the beautiful are exactly 
coordinate in the world around us, and the pursuit 
of the beautiful is as legitimate as that of the true, 
The culture of the love of the beautiful is as essential 
to our highest perfection and well-being as that of 



ART 261 

the love of the true. They stand in the same rela- 
tion to our moral perfection, and neither of them fully 
accomplishes its end without the aid and ministry of 
the other. When we consider that moral perfection 
exhibits itself, incited by love, in kind and beneficent 
and gracious acts, we can comprehend the fact that 
the true, the beautiful, and the good spring from 
one root. 

"The end and aim of art is to give pleasure in the 
common things of life by giving to them p , 
beauty of form, pattern, and color, legitimate aim 
or by translating and transforming of art 

the things of nature into the beauty of pic- 
ture, statue or building. It is the sort of pleas- 
ure that is in all elevated things, and appeals to the 
purest and most intellectual side of our nature. 
There can be no degradation, no intemperance in the 
cultivation and indulgence of the artistic sense. The 
pleasure lies at the root, and is the inspiration of 
music, poetry, painting, sculpture, and architecture. 
It is beauty that is sought for in all these ; beauty is 
the source of pleasure we find in them, and without 
it any manifestation of these great arts is nothing 
worth, We ask of a musical composition not only 
that it shall be in strict accordance with all technical 
rules, but also that it shall enchant us with the beauty 
of its melody ; we ask not only that a poem shall be 
written in faultless language and rhythm, but that it 



262 LESSONS ON MORALS 

shall appeal with a higher beauty to the heart. 
There must be a soul of beauty in the picture, the 
statue, the building, as well as in the musical compo- 
sition and the poem; and then by them we shall be 
made to feel the highest pleasure of which our nature 
is capable — a pleasure which stirs the intellect 
through the senses, and through them the heart." 
In beginning with art we must walk humbly. We 

cannot at once appreciate the highest 
Howtocul- _ , 1 .„ ■ 

tivate a love works of art, and perhaps it will never 

for the beau- come within our possibilities to do so. 
tif ul or for art _ _ r , 

Most of us must content ourselves by 

learning through Nature and through such instruction 
as comes within our reach something of symmetry 
and proportion and relation of parts, something of 
harmony of color and of propriety and use, and apply 
this knowledge to the things about us and make 
them as attractive as we know how. Our homes, 
our gardens, our places of work, our clothes, the 
pictures on our walls, the decorations of our rooms — 
all must have some form, which must be either beau- 
tiful or ugly: beautiful if it accords with Nature and 
helps her; ugly if it is discordant with Nature and 
thwarts her. It cannot be indifferent. Knowing the 
close association of beauty with truth and goodness, 
we can understand that we have a duty in the matter 
of beautiful surroundings, and realize how much hap- 
piness and sweetness will be brought into our lives by 



ART 263 

fulfilling this duty. In this way we can cultivate our 

love for the beautiful and fit ourselves to appreciate 

art in its higher forms, and although we may make 

slow progress, this duty will not prove wearisome, 

because beauty will ever tempt us on. 

The true, the beautiful, and the good, each has its 

opposite in the false, the ugly, and the 

bad. As beauty with its associates, the Effect of ugli ~ 
J ness 

true and the good, ministers to our 
highest, purest, and safest pleasure, so does ugliness, 
with its associates, degrade us and make our hearts 
cold, sordid, and selfish. We grow into the likeness 
of our surroundings, and when we see only the ugly 
and the false, our souls become of like nature. 
Shakespeare has said of music what is applicable to 
all art and beauty: 

"The man that hath no music in himself, 
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, 
Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils : 
The motions of his spirit are dull as night, 
And his affections dark as Erebus, 
Let no such man be trusted." 

Vulgarity is a lack of capacity for the enjoyment 

of the beautiful. It is content with 

Vulgarity 
what is common and gross. A vulgar 

person is blinded to all the finer things of life. He 

has no lofty aspirations, and consequently is in the 

descending scale that leads to the low and the sensual. 



264 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Vulgarity cannot conceal itself. It shows in the 
home by slovenliness or by tawdry and inappropriate 
decorations; in gaudy dress; in sham jewelry; in 
cheap pictures; in rude manners; in coarse and in- 
correct language. The vulgar person shuts himself 
out from all that is precious, and suitable, and lovely, 
and thus misses the charm of life. 

The greatest benefit we can receive from beauty is 

in its relation to culture or to the de- 
Refinement Of t 11- r ^ 
character velopment and shaping of character. 

In order to fulfill the chief end of living 
we need to know what are the ideals we are to select, 
where to find them, how to prove them. Character 
manifests itself in bodily movement, in voice, in word, 
in thought, in feeling, in purpose and endeavor, 
which again express themselves in all that outwardly 
belongs to us — our dress, our home, our surroundings. 
It is a knowledge of the beautiful that unfolds to us 
the principles and rules by which we are to select 
and use all these outward materials in which our 
characters form themselves, and that tells us how to 
embody them freely, gracefully, and well in these 
outer forms. With this knowledge we shall not only 
know how to clothe our whole physical environment 
with that beauty which sky and field and flower sug- 
gest, but shall also be able to interpret the master- 
pieces of art, which make permanent and present for 
our contemplation the forms and features of ideal 



ART 265 

manhood and womanhood, the deeds of great men, 
the struggles of heroes, and all that is high and noble 
and beautiful. The character made fine and refined 
by the love of beauty will exhibit itself not only in 
the virtues but in all the graces of life. 

"One should contrive every day to look at a beau- 
tiful picture, to hear some good music, and if possible 
to speak a few sensible words." — Goethe. 

"Simplicity and plain dealing in the material of 
household goods will lead us a long way in the direc- 
tion of taste." — Crane. 

"Truth and good are one 
And beauty dwells in them, and they in her, 
With like participation." 

— Akenside. 

"And beauty born of murmuring sound 
Shall pass into her face." 

— Wordsworth. 



QUESTIONS 

Why is a study of art desirable, or at least, a study of the 
works of art ? 

Prove that beauty and truth are the same. 

If opportunities are small how may we cultivate a love for 
the beautiful ? 



266 LESSONS ON MORALS 

What is a frequent result of coarse and uncomfortable sur- 
roundings? Show that this is a social question. 

How does vulgarity show itself? 

Can there be perfect beauty of countenance with a hard, cold 
soul back of it? 

Read Three Years She Grew, by Wordsworth ; also Art 
and the Formation of Taste, by Lucy Crane. 



Reading 



m 

Choice of Books 

Novel Reading 

The Reading of Poetry 

Special Reading for the Young 

What Not to Read 

The True Service of Reading 

9& 



'' The love of books is a love which requires neither 
justification, apology, nor defence'' 1 



267 



LESSON XXVI 

READING 

In a previous lesson we have referred to the fact 
that it is sometimes difficult to choose our associates. 
In school, or in work, we are often thrown with 
people whom we would not seek out as companions. 
But there is a -companionship that we may choose 
and that will always be of great profit to us; it is the 
companionship of good books. If it is impossible for 
us to associate with people of true worth, if we can- 
not get near to men of energy to see how they work, 
or to men of thought to catch their spirit and 
method, or to the refined in mind and manner to 
feel their charm, we can seek the companionship 
we need in books. The universal distribution of 
books at the present day makes it possible to 
choose this kind of companionship. Says Charles 
Kingsley: " Except a living man, there is nothing 
more wonderful than a book! — a message to us 
from the dead — from human souls whom we 
never saw, who lived perhaps thousands of miles 
away; and yet these, on those little sheets of 
paper, speak to us, amuse us, vivify us, teach us, 

269 



270 LESSON'S ON MORALS 

comfort us, open their hearts to us as brothers. " 
Wordsworth says: . 

"Books, we know, 
Are a substantial world, both pure and good; 
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, 
Our pastime and our happiness will grow." 

There is nothing that helps in the formation of a 
reading habit so much as the cultivation of a feeling 
of the friendliness of a book. With the growth of this 
feeling one will soon learn to seek certain books for the 
solace they afford in loneliness and misfortune as well 
as for the knowledge they bring of the most precious 
thoughts of the great and good. As each book 
becomes a friend and companion the world grows 
broader and more beautiful. Petrarch said of his 
books, which he looked upon with great affection: 
" I have friends whose society is extremely agreeable 
to me; they are of all ages and of every country. It 
is easy to gain access to them, for they are always at 
my service, and I admit them to my company and 
dismiss them from it whenever I please. They are 
never troublesome, but immediately answer every 
question I ask them. Some by their vivacity drive 
away my cares, while others give fortitude to my 
mind, and teach me how to restrain my desires and 
to depend wholly upon myself." " In my study," 
quaintly said Sir William Waller, "I am sure to con- 
verse with none but wise men; but abroad, it is im- 



READING 271 

possible for me to avoid the society of fools." Sir 
John Herschel called books the best society in every 
period of history. "Give one an affection for good 
books," he says, "and you place him in contact with 
the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and 
the purest characters that have adorned humanity." 

Nowadays, when "of the making of books there is 
no end," the choice of what we shall read 
becomes a matter of prime importance. of books 
Before their judgment has become mature 
the young should go to parent, friend, or teacher 
competent to advise in this respect. Or if there is no 
one to advise, one may know the good books from 
the bad, just as he knows people, by reputation. 

It is not necessary to read every new book as it 
comes from the publisher in order to ascertain its 
value. An author worth reading very soon gets a 
reputation. Especially is it better for the young to 
wait for the general verdict upon a book than to learn 
what the book is by reading it. It is said that "one 
should find his way in the literary world as he learns 
geography, by maps, and not by first-hand explora- 
tions." Emerson says, "Never read any book that is 
not a year old. Never read any but famed books"; 
and Lowell tersely says: 

" Reading new books is like eating new bread ; 
One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he 
Is brought to death's door of a mental dyspepsy." 



272 LESSONS ON MORALS 

Ruskin offers the following pertinent advice to 
beginners in reading books: "It is of the greatest 
importance to you, not only for art's sake, but for all 
kinds of sake, to keep out of the salt swamps of litera- 
ture, and live on a little rocky island of your own, with 
a spring and a lake on it, pure and good. I cannot, 
of course, suggest the choice of your library to you, 
for every several mind needs different books; but there 
are some books which we all need, and assuredly, if 
you read Homer, Plato, /Eschylus, Herodotus, Dante, 
Shakespeare, and Spenser as much as you ought, you 
will not require enlargement of your shelves to 
right and left of them for purposes of perpetual 
study." 

One of Emerson's definite rules in regard to read- 
ing is: "Never read a book that you do not like." 
This is sound advice provided one's interest always 
coincides with what is best, but it is dangerous ad- 
vice to the young when given in an unqualified state- 
ment. If a taste for good reading has been acquired 
it is safe to follow Emerson's counsel, but a better 
rule is: Read what is best for you, what will teach 
you something; read to know and to think. Interest 
is necessary, but one must have a deeper motive. 
Reading has come to be a serious consideration in 
life, and it should be conducted on rational prin- 
ciples and with resolute firmness. If one does not 
become interested in one writer on a certain subject 



READING 273 

he should try another, who perhaps by a charac- 
teristic style will appeal to him and rouse the needed 
enthusiasm. A book, to be useful, need not be dry- 
as-dust in diction. One should read somewhat in the 
way of discipline. The dangerous tendency is to 
read for so-called recreation — that sort of recreation 
which does not tone up but lets down the mind. 
This kind of reading is neither educative nor en- 
nobling. It is better to read, sometimes, what is 
contrary to one's tastes — an essay, poem, biography, 
or history that may not win attention, which there- 
fore must be given. Every act of application of this 
kind requires an effort of will and, if for no other 
purpose, is valuable in that it exercises this faculty. 

One should read for general information. It is 
not creditable at the present day to lack a knowledge 
of literature; it is like rusticity in manners and 
dress. Dr. Munger, after enumerating certain 
requirements in reading simply to fit for society, 
says: "So much we need to read before our minds 
are well enough attired for good society; otherwise 
we must appear in intellectual corduroys and cow- 
skin." 

One should read on various topics. To quote Dr. 
Munger again: "It is a rich and various world we 
are in ; we should touch it at as many points as possible. 
The literature that mirrors it is also rich and various; 
wider even than the world, since it contains the past 



274 LESSONS ON MORALS 

and also the possible. Man is coordinated to this 
richness and variety; so far as may be he should draw 
upon the whole of it, for he needs it all to fill his own 
mould. I distrust the man of one book, even if it be 
the best of books, or of one class of books. A 
lawyer may get no direct aid from reading Tennyson, 
in pleading cases, but you may more safely trust 
your case with him, if it be a large one — because 
the fact of reading such an author indicates that 
he covers more space in the world of thought. In 
the recent works of English scholars, whether on 
natural science, medicine, history, political economy, 
biography, or theology, you will observe that, without 
exception, they are wide readers outside of their 
departments. ,, 

It is well to specialize in some branches of read- 
ing. If at school, reading that pertains to subjects of 
study pursued will broaden one's ideas and render 
the matter of the text-book more easily understood. 
To read books of travel gives added interest to the 
study of geography, and the finest specimens of 
literature take all the dryness out of grammar and 
rhetoric. If at work, the farmer, the doctor, the 
lawyer, must of necessity read much in their own line 
of performance. The effect of reading upon one's 
pursuit is not only that one can follow it more in- 
telligently, but that it has a finer value. When one 
takes his work into literature it grows in dignity. 



READING 275 

The kind of book that most attracts the young, and in- 
deed the old also, is the novel. There are 

, r • c i r Novel-reading 

novels 01 science, 01 adventure, 01 society, 

of history, of politics and religion — in fact, almost 
every topic of any consequence is woven into the novel. 
The main use of the novel is to unfold character and 
to depict society. Its value consists in the fidelity of 
the picture and in the literary charm that invests it. 
A good novel affords recreation, cultivates sentiment, 
and broadens one's ideas of humanity. It is there- 
fore well to read novels that portray life as it really 
is, but it is better not to seek instruction in serious 
subjects in this diluted form. The mind becomes of 
the same fibre as that upon which it feeds, and when 
nourished alone by the " knick-knacks" of literature 
it grows correspondingly weak. Good advice on this 
point is: " Treat yourself to a novel as you take a 
pleasure trip, and because you do it rarely let it be a 
good one. Having selected your novel with the 
greatest care, give yourself up to it; lend to its fancy 
the wings of your own imagination; revel in it with- 
out restraint; drink its wine; float on its tide, whether 
it glides serenely to happy ends or sweeps dark and 
tumultuous to tragic destinies." 

It is hardly within the province of this lesson to 
furnish a list of novelists, but the names of a few of 
the best may prove a helpful suggestion to the earnest 
young reader. The list is by no means full, but the 



276 LESSONS ON MORALS 

following names should stand first: Scott, Cooper, 
Thackeray, Mrs. Stowe, Dickens, George Eliot, Haw- 
thorne, MacDonald, Charlotte Bronte, Miss Edge- 
worth, Jane Austen, Mrs. Whitney, Bulwer, Kings- 
ley, Black, Howells, Blackmore, Kipling, Stevenson, 
Mitchell, Mulock, Victor Hugo, Auerbach, Ruffini, 
and Ebers. A thorough reader of English literature 
was once asked if he had read a certain popular 
novel. He replied: "I only read the saints.'' While 
there are other good novel-writers besides those 
mentioned, the above list is thought, by competent 
judges, to include the "saints" among this class of 
literary craftsmen. 

It is said that the reading of poetry is declining. 
The reading of The world is becoming so matter of fact 
poetry that it can find neither time nor inclina- 
tion to read that which deals so largely with imagina- 
tion. It is to be lamented that so large a part of the 
world's best literature should be lost to any reader, 
and that the God-given power of imagination should 
be slipping away. The poet through his imagination 
interprets nature for us, but he cannot convey his full 
meaning to us unless we have the imagination to 
appreciate and feel the beauty and the power that lie 
hidden in it. There is only so much meaning to us 
in the poets, or in nature and art as a whole, as there 
is in us a soul to receive their meaning. Imagination 
gives wideness to our thoughts, it raises the tone of 



READING 277 

our mental activity, it furnishes us with lofty ideals, 
it gilds the recollections of the past and the anticipa- 
tions of the future. It lights up the whole horizon of 
thought as the sunlight flashes along the mountain- 
tops and lights up the world. It would be but a 
dreary world without that light. 

Aside from the cultivation of the divine gift of 
imagination, the reading of poetry is soothing and 
restful, like music. This is not altogether due to the 
poet's high thought, but partly to the rhythmic 
phraseology. It is as if we were being played upon 
by a master, and all the keys and strings in us that 
were harsh and discordant were falling into tune. 
One of the best influences associated with the read- 
ing of poetry lies in the possibilities of expression 
that verse gives to the man of noble thought. 
Having, as Ruskin says, that " piercing, pervading" 
insight into truth that imagination furnishes, the few 
words into which any great experience of the soul 
may be condensed by the poet can be more effect- 
ively phrased in verse than in prose. How much 
better we remember a couplet, or even a single 
rhythmical line than any prose epigram or aphorism! 

There is every reason why we should cultivate a 
love for poetry. It is elevating, ennobling, impres- 
sive. As in prose reading, great care should be 
taken in the selection of what poetry we shall read. 
The safest rule is to read only the standard poets 



278 LESSONS ON MORALS 

until a thoroughly formed taste enables us to discrimi- 
nate between poetry that is real and poetry that is 
worthless. 

"Cultivate the poetical side of your nature. Do not 
say that because your life is spent in work you have 
neither need nor opportunity to read poetry. On the 
contrary the very prosiness of your ordinary avocation 
is a potent reason why you should correct it by the 
refining and broadening influences of judicious poet- 
ical reading. You are something more than a mere 
hard-working machine. After a hard day's work, the 
reading of a single inspiring poem may do more to 
rest you, and to sweeten toil, than a dozen hours of 
the unintellectual torpor which so many mistake for 
rest." 

Young people sometimes think they must have a 

special kind of book written for their 
Special reading , ™ . , , 

/ A , particular age. I his may be a good 

for the young r ° . 

thing for very young children, but when 

authors write with a view to getting down to the 
capacity of the young, when the real reading age 
comes, usually write what is of small profit to be 
read. Attractiveness of style may be desirable, but 
diluted ideas are a delusion. Hugh Miller, in relating 
how he formed a reading habit, says that he went 
directly from "rudimental" books to the master- 
pieces of all ages — "Old Homer," he says, "writes 
admirably for little folk, especially in the Odyssey. 



READING 279 

With what power, and at how early an age true genius 
impresses! I saw even at this immature period that 
no other could cast a javelin with half the force of 
Homer." 

Robert Collyer says: "Do you want to know how 
I manage to talk to you in simple Saxon? I will tell 
you. I read Bunyan, ' Crusoe,' and Goldsmith when 
I was a boy, morning, noon and night. I took to 
these as I took to milk. When I was thirteen years 
old I could not go home for the Christmas, and was 
feeling very sad about it, when an old farmer came 
in and said, 'I notice thou's fond o' reading, so I 
brought thee summat to read.' It was Irving's 
Sketch Book. I went at it and was 'as them that 
dream.'" 

Instances of this kind might be multiplied to show 
that young people do not require the mental food of 
babes. They should read only the best writers, 
taking care to ascertain what subjects are within their 
comprehension. One great aid to the young in the 
"selection of reading is to remember authors. Em- 
erson said: "Read only famed books." One must 
know the names of authors to know who are the 
"famed." Moreover it savors of ignorance and rusti- 
city not to know. 

"It is of paramount importance," said a learned 
man, "to acquire the art not to read." Do not read 
immoral literature. One who indulges in this kind 



280 LESSONS ON MORALS 

of reading reads himself into moral darkness. " There 

is something peculiarly destructive in 

read that knowledge of evil which comes 

through a book, or a picture. The 

direct sight and sound of it do not so wound and blast 

as does that apprehension of it gained by reading. It 

thus seems to get into the mind, where it intrenches 

itself in the imagination, turning this noblest faculty 

into a minister of perdition." 

There is a class of books not positively immoral, 
but positively lacking in every element of true litera- 
ture. The world is flooded with these pointless, in- 
sipid, trashy volumes, and unfortunately they find 
readers. It might appear that such writings would be 
harmless — since they are so light in character. 
Their harmfulness is the one positive quality they 
possess. They injure the mind. They have an un- 
educative effect. They lower the tone of the intel- 
lect and unfit it for what is worthy to be read. 

Especially are there many stories and novels that 
come under the above description. "Such books do 
not hold the mirror up to nature, nor to society, nor 
to the real currents of human thought; they mirror 
the distorted notions of very conceited persons of 
very shabby principles who find it easier to write 
down their own vaporings than to study nature and 
society." When this kind of reading is steadily 
persisted in, it not only weakens the fibre of the 



READING 281 

mind but induces a low standard of taste in every- 
thing else. 

It may be asked what are the criterion s of a bad 
book. Robert Collyer has well answered this ques- 
tion: "If, when I read a book about God, I find that 
it has put Him farther from me; or about man, that 
it has put me farther from him ; or about the universe, 
that it has shaken down upon it a new desolation, 
turning a green field into a wild moor; or about life, 
that it has made it seem a little less worth living; or 
about moral principles, that they are not quite so 
clear and strong as they were when this author began 
to talk ; then I know that, for me, it is a bad book. 
It may chime in with some lurking appetite in my 
own nature, and so seem to be as sweet as honey to 
my taste, but it comes to bitter, bad results. If the 
book I read shall touch these first great things at all, 
it shall touch them to my profit or I will not read it. 
Right and wrong shall grow more clear, life in and 
about me more divine; I shall come nearer to my 
fellows, and God nearer to me, or the thing is 
a poison. " 

"When I consider what some books have done for 
the world, and what they are doing, how Th . 
they keep up our hope, awaken new service of 
courage and faith, soothe pain, give an readin S 
ideal life to those whose homes are cold and hard; 



282 LESSONS ON MORALS 

bind together distant ages and foreign lands, create 
new worlds of beauty, bring down truths from 
heaven — I give eternal blessings for this gift, and 
pray that we may use it aright, and abuse it never." 
— James Freeman Clarke. 

"The choice of books is not the least part of the 
duty of a scholar. If he would become a man, and 
worthy to deal with manlike things, he must read 
only the bravest and noblest books — books forged 
at the heart and fashioned by the intellect of a god- 
like man." — January Searle. 

"I love my books as drinkers love their wine, 

The more I drink, the more they seem divine; 
With joy elate my soul in love runs o'er, 

And each fresh draught is sweeter than before! 
Books bring me friends, where e'er on earth I be — 
Solace of solitude, bonds of society. 
"I love my books! They are companions dear, 
Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere; 
Here talk I with the wise in ages gone, 

And with the nobly gifted in our own; 
If love, joy, laughter, sorrow please my mind, 
Love, joy, grief, laughter, in my books I find." 

— Francis Bennoch. 

QUESTIONS 

How may we select our books ? 

Is it better for young people to specialize in regard to subjects 
of reading or not? 



READING 283 

At what age did your love for reading take possession of 



you? 



What kind of books should we not read? 

What should be our general line of reading when in school? 

Why is it well to read good poetry? 



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What we want to appear in character, we 
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From the Author s Preface. 

Contents 
h Aims in Character Building 
IL Psychology of Character Building 
IIL Ethics of Character Building 
IV* Methods in Character Building 
V* Growth in Character 
VL Habit, In Relation to Character Building 
VII. Study, In Relation to Character Building 
VIIL Education, In Relation to Character Building 
IX. The Parent, In Relation to Character Building 
X. Character and American Citizenship 
XL Inspiring Thoughts and Helps 

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20 LIKES AND OPPOSITES. s 



ant. : aid, befriend, cover, defend, 
protect, resist, shelter, shield, sup- 
port, sustain, uphold, withstand. 

attack, n. syn. : aggression, 
assault, encroachment, in- 
cursion, infringement, intru- 
sion, invasion, onset, on- 
slaught, trespass. 

ant. : defense, repulsion, resistance, 
retreat, submission, surrender. 

attain. syn. : accomplish, 
achieve, acquire, arrive at, 
compass, earn, gain, get, 
grasp, master, obtain, pro- 
cure, reach, secure, win. 

ant. : abandon, fail, forfeit, give up, 
let go, lose, miss. 

attainment. syn. : accom- 
plishments, acquirements, in- 
formation, progress, wisdom. 

ANT. : genius, inspiration, intuition. 

attempt, z>., see endeavor, v. 

attempt, n., see endeavor, n. 

attend. syn. : accompany, 
care, consort, follow, heed, 
imply, involve, listen, mind, 
notice, observe, serve, wait 
on. 

ant. : abandon, desert, disregard, ex- 
clude, forsake, leave, neutralize, 
wander. 

attendant, see accessory. 

attention, syn. : care, circum- 
spection, consideration, heed, 
industry, notice,observation, 
regard, study, vigilance, 
watchfulness. 

ant.: absence, abstraction, careless- 
ness, disregard, distraction, inad- 
vertence, indifference, remission. 

attestation, see testimony. 

attire, see dress. 

attitude, syn. : pose, position, 

posture. 
attract. SYN.; allure, charm, 



dispose, draw, entice, fasci- 
nate, incline, induce, influ- 
ence, invite, prompt, tempt. 

ant.: alienate, deter, disincline, es- 
trange, indispose, repel. 

attraction, see love. 

attractive, syn. : alluring, 
agreeable, amiable, beauti- 
ful, captivating, charming, 
engaging, enticing, fasci- 
nating, interesting, inviting, 
pleasant, tempting, winning. 

ant.: deformed, deterring, disagree- 
able, forbidding, loathsome, re- 
pugnant, repulsive, ugly, unattract* 
lve, uninteresting. 

attribute, v. syn.: ascribe, 
assign, associate, charge, 
connect, impute, refer. 

ant. : deny, disconnect, dissociate* 
separate, sever, sunder. 

attribute, n. syn. : property, 

quality. 

ant. : being, essence, nature, sub- 
stance. 

audacity, syn.: boldness, ef- 
frontery, hardihood, rash > 
ness, recklessness, temerity. 

ant.: calculation, caution, diffidence, 
foresight, forethought, inadventur- 
ousness, self-preservation, timidity. 

augment, syn.: add, amplify, 
broaden, dilate, enlarge, ex- 
pand,extend,increase,stretch 
out, swell. 

ant.: contract, curtail, diminish, 
lessen, narrow, reduce, restrict. 

augur, syn. : betoken, bode, 
divine, forebode, foretell, 
portend, predict, presage, 
prognosticate, prophesy. 

ANT. : assure, calculate, demonstrate, 
determine, establish, insure, make 
' sure, prove, settle, warrant. 

august. SYN.; awful, dignified, 



Sample copy will be sent for insvection if desired* 



A New Speller 

5,000 COMMON WORDS 
ONE SHOULD KNOW HOW TO SPELL 

Price, 25 Cents 

Contents 

Words Met in General Reading and Used in Ordinary 
Conversation 

Words of Similar Pronunciation, but of Different Spell- 
ing and Meaning 

Words often Confounded either in Spelling, Pronuncia- 
tion or Meaning 

Words Spelled the Same, but Differently Accented 

Terminations often Confounded 

Rules for Correct Spelling 

Rules for Capitalization 

Rules for Punctuation 

Words used in Business 

General Abbreviations 

Proper Names 

Table of Diacritical Marks, etc. 

In cases of introduction we will deliver this book 

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HINDS & NOBLE, Publishers 
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U$i 


tor 


1$ on manners 

Adapted to 


Grammar Schools, High Schools 






and Academies 




By Julia M* Dewey 


Author of 


11 How to Teach Manners " and " Ethics for 






Home and School." 


Cloth, 


i 60 pages. Price, 75 cents. 






List of Contents 


Lesson 


I- 


-Manners in General. 


Lesson 


II- 


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Lesson 


III- 


-Manners at School. 


Lesson 


IV- 


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Lesson 


V- 


-Manners at the Table. 


Lesson 


VI- 


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Lesson 


VII- 


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Lesson 


VIII- 


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Lesson 


IX- 


-Manners at Places of Amusement. 


Lesson 


X- 


-Manners in Traveling. 


Lesson 


XI- 


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Lesson 


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Gifts. 


Lesson XIII- 


—Manners in Borrowing. 


Lesson XIV- 


-Manners in Correspondence. 


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German 

texts 

lUith 

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and explanatory footnotes printed on good 
paper, bound in cloth, price 50c per vol- 
ume. The following texts are now ready: 
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und Dorothea, Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans 
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AText=Book on Le tter= Writing 

cloth— 75 cents Postpaid— 165 pages 

Believing that the social and business career of 
our youth demands that as much attention should be 
bestowed upon Letter-Writing in our schools, as 
upon Grammar, Orthography, Penmanship, and 
other elementary studies, we have published a text- 
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Our endeavor has been not only to produce just the book to 
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Part I.— Letters, Notes, and Postal Cards. 
KINDS OF LETTERS. Social, Domestic, Introductory; Business, 
Personal, Official ; Miscellaneous; Public. orOpen. Postal Cards. 
STRUCTURE OF LETTERS. Materials; The Heading, The Intro- 
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Letters ; of Notes. 

Part II —Orthography and Punctuation. 
RULES. For Forming Derivatives, etc.; For Capitals ; For Punctua- 
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Part III. — Miscellaneous. 
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